


And Counting

by nubbins_for_all



Series: Winter isn't goin' nowhere [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne for President, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jaime is the Leetle Spoon, Self-Esteem Issues, Smut, a day in the life, and nothing is easily resolved, and they're gonna get an ending, but god damn it they're gonna be okay, happy and otherwise, my stupid idiot babies, they both have a ton of issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-07-23 12:29:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 97,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubbins_for_all/pseuds/nubbins_for_all
Summary: Starting from the night after TBTWP, the evolution of Jaime and Brienne as partners and as people. Some emotional heavy-lifting, some Fun with Friends, some PTSD and healing, some fighty stuff, and of course, fluff and smut coming out the ears. A happy ending that's not always happy, but is always earned.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hooray, a multi-chapter fic! I think this is gonna basically just be an unending tribute to My Stupid Idiot Babies and Their Love, so not a ton of fancy plot or dramatic twists. (I have some other fics lined up for those.) This fic is essentially a long warm hug made of alt-canon Jaime/Brienne so if you enjoy that WELCOME FRIENDS COME AND SIT BY THE FIRE AND BE INSANE WITH ME

**1 Day**

* * *

Their first morning together, Brienne almost punches him.

It’s not her fault, and for once it’s not actually his either. Waking up to a warm body means _danger._ Men trying to climb on top of her, shove their hands inside her breeches, grab her hair and her wrists and yank her over onto her front. There’s no counting the nights she slept in her armor, hovering just on the edge of sleep, fingers twitching at the sound of footsteps too near.

Once, after a long march with Renly’s camp, she’d been so desperate for a sound rest that she’d taken off her breastplate before bedding down; hours later she’d awoken to hoarse panting that smelled like sour ale and the weight of a full-grown man straddling her waist, his thick fingers pawing at her chest, while his companion giggled and wrapped a hand around her throat.

They hadn’t been difficult to fight off, drunk and unskilled as they were. But in the morning there had been snickers and looks from the men around her tent, and any thoughts she’d had of telling Renly about the incident evaporated. _Nasty little shits don’t deserve your tears_ , he’d said, and if those nasty little shits were the same ones fighting to make him king, then she’d put up with them. For him.

But Renly is dead and it’s been years since she trusted anyone besides Podrick to be near her when she’s sleeping, so when she wakes up and the first thing she feels is a warm arm slung around her stomach, bare skin soft against hers, her well-honed instincts tell her _fight back, get away, hurt them before they hurt you._

She’s already tensing to flip over and smash her fist into the invader’s face when she realizes the arm wrapped around her doesn’t have a hand attached to it.

She freezes, her heart pounding, a strange feeling in her stomach like when she misses a step on the stairs. Her memory comes back in fits and starts—

_The feast in the main hall, loud, crowded, smelly—_

_Tyrion pouring more wine and laughing—_

_Pod looking at her, stricken, embarrassed on her behalf—_

_The dark hallway filled with shame and a strange sense of relief—_

_Jaime’s face coming nearer and nearer—_

_Jaime._

Brienne feels a jolt go through her, something primal and shocked.

_Jaime’s hand on the back of her neck. Jaime’s mouth on her breast. Jaime’s knee pushing her legs apart. Jaime’s breath in her ear, in her mouth, his cock in her and through her, Jaime’s weight pressing her endlessly back into the bed, Jaime crying out like a dying man, Jaime._

_And the way he made her feel._

His arm has gone rigid at her waist. Slowly, dreading it and desperate for it, she turns over, shifting to face him, and when she does their eyes meet. He’s on his side, hair sticking up in a nest of cowlicks, mouth slightly open, looking somehow much younger than she’s ever seen him. He's wide awake, who knows how long, and he’s holding his breath.

_Pressure building where his fingers are inside her, unbelievable, half-remembered from lonely nights out on the road with her own hand, but not like this, nothing like this, she’s making noise without meaning to and she can’t stop moving but she wants more and Jaime is kissing her stomach so softly—_

Brienne feels something clench between her legs, an automatic reaction to the memory. She shudders.

The silence between them is like a third person in the bed. Brienne is acutely aware of the fact that she’s totally naked, and then she’s even more aware of the fact that _he’s_ totally naked. She can feel the tension in his arm where it’s still around her and in his body where he’s close against her, his chest and stomach and groin touching her in one long warm press. There are a number of furs and blankets piled on top of them, which is good both in terms of modesty and in terms of it being really fucking cold in her room. The light coming in through the windows is milky and weak but there’s enough to let her know it’s morning. Late morning, in fact, since she can’t hear the fire and she usually wakes up before it’s died completely.

 _“I told you,” and she doesn’t really know what it was she had told him or what she’s going to tell him now but it doesn’t matter because he’s grabbing her and kissing her and it’s never been like this, never, she’s never wanted to give it when someone’s come to take it from her, but Jaime doesn’t feel like he’s taking, he seems to be pouring himself into her, and she grabs him around the hips and pulls him closer, Gods he feels good, he's beautiful, he's_ Jaime—

Brienne swallows, her throat dry. Jaime hasn’t moved. His expression is probably a mirror of her own, stunned and open and uncertain. She wishes they hadn’t made eye contact because now she can’t look away, and if she can’t look away she can’t gather her thoughts, and if she can’t gather her thoughts then she’s going to spend the rest of eternity staring into those strange green eyes.

_His eyes half-lidded, up over her—_

_His hips so hard and sharp against the insides of her thighs—_

_Her thick, unwomanly thighs, her square hips, her broad shoulders—_

_And Jaime is so beautiful—_

And she’s still her. Still Brienne.

Shame floods abruptly through Brienne, snapping her out of her daze like a palm across the face. Because this is Jaime Lannister, a beautiful and famous man who has made love to the most beautiful and famous woman in the world, their love story wrong and twisted and salacious and sensual in how forbidden it is. People know him and talk about him and look up when he walks into a room. Brienne is an ugly woman who is not even really a woman because men do not want to fuck her, and nobody knows her, and when she walks into a room people only notice long enough to feel better about themselves and smirk.

Jaime doesn’t do that. He’s her friend, he cares about her, because she saved him and he saved her and they’ve learned to trust each other. He admires her, which is more than she could have ever asked for. And last night he was lonely and drunk and his self-loathing overcame him so he went to find a friend to help him and now he’s humiliated.

Men like him respect women like her, but they do not want them. He will blame himself for this. But she is the one to blame, because she should have been a better woman or else never let him near her in the first place.

_I am not allowed to want what is too good for me._

Now she can finally look away, the shame so strong it nearly blinds her. She’s hyper-aware of every inch of her ungainly body, her breasts that are too small and her waist that is too thick and her cropped hair that looks like straw in the mornings. He’s still touching her and she’s embarrassed for him, that he’s so plainly confronted with the facts of who—of _what_ he lay with.

This picture is so wrong. Nobody would paint this or weave it into a tapestry. This is a joke, and she knows because people have been telling it about her since before she can remember.

Brienne stares at the wall over his shoulder. Maybe he’ll take pity on them both and close his eyes so she can roll away and out of the bed with a shred of dignity left. She’ll put on her robe and leave, stand in the hall until he comes out with his clothes on and his golden hand swinging and his eyes down, praying that she’ll leave him be and not make this any more pathetic than it already is, and maybe if they’re lucky they won’t see each other for a couple days and then they can pretend it never hap—

He’s kissing her.

Brienne’s head spins and she blinks, disoriented, the far wall suddenly blocked out by Jaime right up against her, his lips soft, the blunt edge of teeth pulling gently at her bottom lip.

_What is he doing?_

“Brienne,” he breathes, and her eyes flutter shut without her permission. He kisses her again, his arm tightens around her waist, and as they shift against each other Brienne suddenly realizes that Jaime is—that’s his—

_What’s happening why is he doing this to me doesn’t he know this isn’t how--_

He’s rolling towards her, starting to rise up on his elbow so he can get on top of her, and a bolt of panic gives her the strength _(why does she feel so weak when he’s kissing her like that)_ to push him back. He goes, panting a little, eyes wide, mouth still open, so beautiful it makes her face hurt.

“Are you all right?” he says, and it makes no sense because he’s the one who should be anything but all right. She stares at him, at the long lines of his collarbone and neck, at the dusting of hair on his chest where the furs have ridden down, at the nipples slightly darker than the rest of his skin and the shape of the muscles in his shoulders, and he’s too much, he’s too _Jaime_ , she has to leave now and save him from being here in this bed with her any longer.

She pushes herself up to sitting and makes to swing her legs out and onto the floor, already bracing for the icy-cold floor. But before she can get a foot off the bed, an iron grip closes around her right bicep and she’s being wrenched back, spun around to face him where he lies there looking up at her, almost—indignant?

“Wait."

“Get off me,” she mumbles, and tries to yank her arm back, but suddenly it’s her being yanked, her back hitting the mattress as he pulls her down hard. Before she can adjust to the change in angle he’s over her, his sharp and perfect face inches from hers, and there’s something burning in his eyes that she’s afraid to even try to recognize.

“No.”

She blinks up at him, too discombobulated to try and throw him off again. “No?”

“No, you can’t go.”

“Yes I can,” she says automatically, contrary to the end. His breath catches.

“I have to—I can’t let you think—”

_Gods, she wishes she could save him from herself._

“I hold you to nothing, Ser Jaime.” He is her closest friend, her secret anchor, a person unlike anyone she has ever met and the owner of a singular place in her heart, and she won’t let him take the blame for this. He was drunk and lonely and confused. She was Brienne, and always has been, she should have known better.

“Don’t say that. Please. All I am is what you have held me to.”

His voice startles her, the way it cracks on the last word. Brienne feels her pulse throbbing beneath his grip as he pushes on. “I swear I won’t pursue you, if you wish I’ll never look you in the eye again, but you cannot—I am not worth enough to stain your honor. You have to believe that. You _have_ to.”

_What?_

“My honor?”

He takes a shaky breath, and oh Gods, his eyes are so bright, _what’s happening?_

“I will not let you leave this room believing yourself to be tarnished. This was—I betrayed you, I knew what I was doing and I didn’t stop. Even a moment ago I was willing to give up the last shred of my own honor just because I want you so badly it feels like dying.”

He lets go of her arm and draws back, spine straight, staring at her with burning intensity. “But you are beyond any mud I can drag you down into, Brienne. You cannot be soiled by my wanting you or touching you, your honor is clean and pure and whole and I am the affront to it, not you, never you.”

_This is either a very cruel joke or a very real dream._

“I have no right to ask anything of you,” he says, chin going up, “but I still demand your promise, Ser Brienne, that you won’t leave this room wearing my sins as yours.”

A long silence. His chest heaves and his eyes burn, while her whole body is numb. She can’t think. She can’t see anything but him.

“You don’t want me.”

Jaime blinks. His mouth opens and closes.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t want me.” Her mind may be reeling but she finds solace in the familiarity of truth. “I’m Brienne. You’re Jaime. You don’t want me.”

“Yes I do,” he replies indignantly. She shakes her head.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I—Brienne, are you all right? Do you know me?” He’s leaning in again, peering at her, and suddenly his hand is on her forehead. “Do you feel feverish?”

“You don’t want me!” She doesn’t mean to shout but it comes out that way, and now he’s glaring at her as she pushes him away and sits up and they’re on the same level now, squared off naked and bare for battle just like old times.

“Of course I fucking want you, you daft woman!”

“Don’t call me daft when _you’re_ the one making no sense!”

“Why else would I be here, then?”

“Because—” Her throat is closing, she doesn’t want to say it but she has to because he won’t, “because you don’t have _her_ anymore, and you’re hurt, and lonely, and we—care for each other, so—”

“Don’t you talk about _her,”_ he spits through clenched teeth, and Brienne’s stomach goes painfully hollow.

“I am talking about _you_ , Ser Jaime, and why you don’t have to pretend.”

His face goes blank and confused, again. She wants to hit him, again. It’s so much easier to want to hit him than to want anything else.

“I’m not _pretending_ , Brienne. The last time I tried to pretend with you, I stole a sword and you beat me in less than a minute.”

At the mention of his last fight with two hands, he glances down at his stump. It lies in his lap, blunt and angular against the white sheets, and Brienne is seized with a strange and almost overwhelming urge to lean down and kiss it.

_He’d tried to keep the hand on, when she grabbed for it with wine-clumsy fingers he’d pulled away and whispered, “You don’t have to,” and she’d kissed him with bravery watered by that same wine and untwined the straps and run her fingers over the puckered end of his wrist, and he’d moaned and buried his face in her neck._

_That might have been the minute she knew--that friendship doesn't burn like this and never has._

“Then why are you saying that?” she whispers now.

“Saying what?”

“That…” If she speaks the words they’ll hurt even more. “That you want me.”

Jaime’s eyes widen and he huffs out a short laugh, shaking his head helplessly like a septon before a stupid pupil. “Because it’s the truth. Because if I said I came here last night with a mind to do anything other than take you to bed, that lie would dishonor you even more than I already have. Because in a lifetime of selfishness and stupidity, wanting you is the one good and wise thing I’ve ever done, and I won’t give that up, not even for you.”

Brienne stares. That’s all she can do, besides shake with the force of her own pounding heart and immediately try to crush the tiny gleam of hope in her brain, the flicker of excitement. She is Brienne. She is not wanted, and she is not stupid about it.

“Ser Jaime—”

“If you call me that again I’m going to break something,” he says furiously. “You called me Jaime last night when I was inside you, I’ll remember it until the day I die, don’t take it back now.”

She blushes so hard she gets a headrush. How can he say something like that out loud, acknowledge it in the open air like one might mention the weather?

“I won’t tell anyone,” he says, his voice pained. “You will never have to acknowledge this. But just as I can’t let you believe my mistakes have cost you your honor, I can’t let you believe that I don’t want you and care for you any less than I do, and sometimes I feel like wanting you and caring for you are all of me besides my bones. Certainly the best of me. You always have been.”

This is how it is so often between them, him talking and talking and pouring out everything inside his head, and her sitting there quiet, receiving, gathering, trusting that he’ll let her speak when she wants to. Usually she enjoys it, cherishes it even, because he never talks to her like she could be anybody, he talks to her like she’s _her_ , and like he _wants_ her to know these things about him, and he’s never impatient for her to finish speaking because he actually cares what she’s saying.

But right now it’s terrifying. She knows how he loves, crazy and desperate and all-consuming. The whole country knows how he loves because they’ve seen it play out in battles and murders and challenges to the throne. And she’s seeing it now, right in front of her, but it can’t be, it’s not, because—

“You’re beautiful,” she blurts out, and to be fair to him he has a right to look confused. Again.

“I—thank you?”

“You’re beautiful, and you loved a beautiful woman, and I’m not…” She feels so foolish and hateful right now, lumbering even in her words. She doesn’t love like Jaime does, all fire and ferocity, she loves in unbreakable bands of iron and steel, and right now the weight of them as they bind her to him is dragging her down to despair. 

“Brienne.” She’s not looking at him, she can’t, so she flinches when his fingers land soft and hesitant on her elbow. He tugs gently and she reluctantly lifts her head to see him looking at her with an entirely new face, tender and sad and too much for her, too much. “You are more beautiful than I could ever be.”

“Don’t,” she snaps, and her voice is harsh enough to make him flinch. “Don’t lie to me, ser, you said you wouldn’t.”

“Why do you think it’s a lie?” he asks, and she laughs, harsh again.

“A great beast of a woman, uglier in the daylight,” she recites, and when he still looks nonplussed she clarifies. “That’s how you spoke of me. Graceless, mannish, cow. It’s a lie because you once told me the truth.”

_Fucking tears, Renly said they don’t deserve your tears, why are you crying now you idiotic woman, stop it, don’t let him see—_

“I was wrong.” He sounds desperate, like a man bargaining for his life, and his hand comes up to wipe tears off her cheeks. “I was stupid and mean and wrong, because I felt sorry for myself and it felt better to hurt you. And because—” He stops, squirms, steels himself, “because I did think those things, once.”

It would have been worse for him to lie again, but it still hurts. She closes her eyes but it doesn’t stop the tears. A warrior with a Valyrian steel sword, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and she still cries because a boy thought she wasn’t pretty. The rest of them don’t respect her and now she doesn’t even have her own respect, this is as low as it gets.

“But I learned,” he whispers, his voice coming closer as he leans in. “The words on the page looked like jumbled nonsense before my father forced me to study the books and learn to read. You looked like—like what I said, before I saw you and knew you and fought beside you and learned to read. Again.”

She shakes her head, wanting it all to just go away, wanting to go back to some earlier time when she knew the way the world worked and was content to work her own way, even if it meant being alone. Jaime’s hand is still on her cheek, and it’s warm.

“I was wrong, and then I learned, and I am so sorry, Brienne,” he says, so close now, she can feel his breath on her chin. “You are the best person I have ever known, because you are yourself.”

It takes her a second to breathe this words in, and as soon as she does they explode inside her chest.

Brienne opens her eyes. Jaime is kneeling before her, reverent, naked above and below the covers. He has a look on his face on his face like he’s praying. His eyes are wet.

This time, _she_ kisses _him_.

And she doesn’t believe it, not completely, not yet, because a lifetime of being told one thing doesn’t change in a single morning of being told another, but he’s Jaime, he’s a man of honor, he loves like the sweet burn of truth and he wouldn’t say these things if he didn’t mean them, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, and she presses her belief in him _(if not in herself)_ into his mouth, lets her tongue curl it against his, presses him back onto the bed and tries to tell him without words that she trusts him not to hurt her like everything always has.

“Brienne,” he gasps, and just like earlier this morning her eyes fall shut and she can’t feel anything but the heat of his mouth on hers, except this time _he_ ’s pushing _her_ back, a palm flat on her chest. “Brienne, I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, and your honor—”

“Is no stronger and truer than yours,” she whispers to the man who says he can read her, who knows her. Jaime flinches.

“I’ve done so many terrible things, I’ve broken vows, I’ve fucked my mad sister—you should want someone who won’t shame you.”

“You never shame me,” she says, and cups his face in her hands. “You saved a city, you kept me safe from rapers, you left the South to come here and fight with us—”

“I left the South for _you_ —”

“Jaime,” in a gasp, and they’re kissing again, and he digs his fingers into her hip and rolls against her and there it is, again, hot and hard and _thrilling_.

“Don’t let me do this,” he begs, his breath hot on her neck. “I’m too selfish, I won’t stop, don’t let me pretend to deserve any bit of you—”

“You said you don’t pretend.”

The furs have slid back and they’re naked in the open air, it’s fucking cold but it feels so good when his skin is sliding hot and damp and eager all over hers, and Brienne runs her hand down his right arm and grabs his wrist and brings it to her lips to kiss it. The skin is smooth, crisscrossed with wrinkles and scars, and his wrist flexes powerfully. The minute her lips touch him, he cries out and his hips jerk wildly against her.

“If I can be beautiful, you can have honor,” she tells him, and she sees his honor and his goodness so plainly before her that when he gasps and shakes his head, she suddenly wonders if maybe this is how she seems to him, blind to all reflections of herself, living someone else’s idea for a story over and over again.

“Please,” he pants. “Stop me before I ruin anything else.”

“Jaime,” she replies, “my Jaime,” and the look of panic and fear and pleading in his eyes makes her want to wrap him up in her own strength, keep him safe, make him feel the way he makes her feel, and so with more courage than she’s ever found in any battle, Brienne puts her lips to his ear and whispers and when he hears the words he comes like a cavalry charge, rutting wildly against her hip, moaning and shuddering.

Afterwards, loose-limbed and languid, he brings her to orgasm with his fingers and tells her that he loves her too.

They have both been hurt and used so many times. They both know who they are supposed to be. They both struggle to believe.

But lying there with Jaime, his head on her chest and her hand in his hair, Brienne wants to trust that whatever started last night may not die with the dawn. That maybe, somehow, it is growing bigger, and stronger, and like a newly-hatched dragon it has fire at its core.


	2. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime finds out who knows. Which is everybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to a giant pile of fluff, smut, and the Hound being my favorite. More coming soon, in this fic and others. Love you all.
> 
> (Also I think I accidentally made up some stuff about geography and House Glover, whatever, it's a world full of dragons I'm trying my best here)
> 
> (also also I cribbed like one line from 8x04 because it was obnoxious but Tyrion-accurate, unlike the entire rest of the season which is just obnoxious)

**3 days**

* * *

Word gets around pretty quick.

It’s not like there aren’t more important things to talk about. Though the Night King and his horde are no longer a threat, winter doesn’t seem to be pulling back its assault one bit. A blizzard hits the day after the feast, nearly burying the remaining Dothraki and forcing the Unsullied forces inside to sleep practically on top of each other in Winterfell’s main hall. The two remaining dragons scream and blast fire until melted snow flows like a whole new river past the main gate, but they’re too sluggish and chilly to do much else. With all the dead finally burned and buried, the Armies of North and East have no more time to celebrate. Winter is here, and unfortunately, so are they.

So yes, one would think that between rounding up hundreds of miserable Essosi fighters, recruiting Northerners willing to lead the “barbarians” to holdfasts like Moat Caillin and Torrhen’s Square and Castle Cerwyn, convincing the Dragon Queen that marching down to King’s Landing in the heart of winter is _not_ a good idea, and frantically trying to find enough food and clothing to make sure everybody doesn’t die in the next week, gossip might not be of the highest priority.

One would think. 

* * *

In the end, Jaime’s not surprised. He grew up at court, where gossip was pastime, politics, and currency. People have been whispering to him and about him and behind him for his whole life, and he learned long ago not to care.

_(Surprisingly, fucking your twin sister really changes a person’s perspective on the relative importance of some idiot lordling’s opinion.)_

He also knows from experience that whispers and rumors never move faster than during a crisis. During Robert’s Rebellion, the court at King’s Landing was consumed with talk of a love triangle between two knights from the Westerlands and a lowborn servant girl from Tumbleton, a well-known innkeeper’s decision to stop serving mutton, and a epic and ultimately unresolved saga involving two pairs of green shoes and a possible plot to upstage the queen’s senior handmaiden at the upcoming tourney.

Of course, it all stopped mattering when they had their heads impaled on spikes.

Jaime very much hopes this is not going to end with any heads on any spikes, although he knows that’s fairly unlikely. If he takes even a moment to think about it he is bombarded with images of Cersei’s face, dead-eyed and grey-cheeked, dripping blood onto the cobblestones, and he has to take deep breaths and lean against the nearest wall in order to keep moving.

But most of the time he’s not thinking about any of that, or about the Dragon Queen or the winter freeze or even the inevitable southward march. Most of the time he’s thinking about Brienne.

Her smell, her fingers, the sounds she makes when her sore knees twinge in the cold. The things that make her laugh, now that she’s not trying so hard not to laugh around him. The unbelievable power behind her blade when she comes into a swing off her right side. The scrape of her nails against his scalp as he buries his face between her legs. The way she looks at him when he tells her what he’s done and who he did it for, the way she doesn’t let him wallow or weep and insists over and over that he can still be a good man, even after everything. The terrifying fact that she is not Cersei, and never has been. Brienne, honorable, strong, ornery, sensitive, aggravating, magnificent Brienne.

He’s thinking about her constantly, and so, it appears, is everyone else.

Not only her, actually, but him too. Ser Jaime and Ser Brienne, two unknown quantities in this vast frozen shithole, now suddenly at the forefront of Winterfell’s social chatter.

There’s no reason it should be them as opposed to anyone else. In the aftermath of the Long Night, half the castle is fucking the other half, and everybody with an eye in their heads knows about Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen, and it’s clear that Gendry Baratheon is falling-down-dumb for Arya Stark, even if nobody has any idea how she feels about him _(or about anything else, that girl is as opaque as she is terrifying)._ The point is, there’s plenty of fucking and fighting and salacious scandal going on around the stuffy crowded keep, but for reasons only the Gods can reveal, the coupling of Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth seems to hold the most interest for the most amount of people.

* * *

Jaime doesn’t notice for the first two days. He’s too busy reorienting himself within a world so new and dazzling it makes him want to sing. After their first morning together, with the tears and the shouting and the best damn kisses he’s ever had, Brienne goes off to meet with Lady Sansa while Jaime spends the day in a daze, drifting around the castle doing whatever useful thing someone tells him to while he continues to think about Brienne and wonder if love is like this for other people.

_I always thought that Cersei and I were better, special, a truer form of truth, that’s what she told me we were and nobody could prove her wrong, but now, Brienne, not my copy but my complement, fitting into my hollow places, accepting the parts of me that are too much, is this what it’s like for everyone, how do human beings get anything done if it is, Brienne, Brienne, Brienne._

That night he comes to his senses long enough to pilfer a loaf of brown bread, some pork crackling, and a flask of strong sour cider from the back of the kitchen before sending Podrick off to tell her she needs to go back to her room. When she opens the door, shining in her armor and tall as the Wall, he’s laid the spread out on her fur rug in the front of the fireplace, like the indoor picnics he and Cersei used to have with their mother when they were little. Brienne’s eyes get very big when she sees this, possibly because of the sweetness of the gesture but more likely because Jaime’s lying on the rug beside the food, naked as the day he was born.

The best part is, by the time they finish their supper, he’s ready to go again. And this time, she wants to try being on top.

She’s very, very, very good at being on top.

The day after that the blizzard has let up a little, at least enough for the first batch of Eastern soldiers to set out marching for shelter. The castle is crazed with preparations, everyone lending a hand, and Jaime can’t be quite as dopey with love as he was the day before because he’s tasked with helping to secure saddlebags of supplies to angry horses who hate the snow and the cold and if he tries to daydream about Brienne’s smile and Brienne’s breasts he’ll probably end up getting kicked in the head.

It’s all worth it though, when she finds him at the end of the day, half-frozen and bruised and soaked with melted snow, wearily dragging a saddlebag with a broken strap back to the stables after the convoy has finally set off. She promptly bundles him off to her room and strips him down, leaving him once or twice to put wood on the fire until the room is sweltering. She pours broth down his throat as she tells him about her day tailing Lady Sansa around as she negotiates grain rations with the Dragon Queen, and she rubs his poor aching stump, and then she leans down and puts her mouth on his cock.

He could count the number of times Cersei did this on his one remaining hand, and he can recall the circumstances surrounding each one, how it always happened when she was most pleased with herself and felt her most powerful. He’d enjoyed that, being used by her, his usual helplessness in her presence briefly transformed into something sensual. She always made him stand when she did it, and when his legs went weak and he tried to brace himself on her shoulders she would shrug him off with a violent twitch, forcing him to either reach for a nearby chair or grit his teeth and work very hard to remain standing through the gut-punch of climax. He’d liked that too, being forced to be strong. It felt like doing something right.

Brienne doesn’t do anything like that. He’s sitting down, for one thing, at the top of the bed with his back against the headboard and a pillow to support his tired hips. One second Brienne is sitting almost primly beside him, her legs folded underneath her as she massages his stump and listens to him bitch about Dothraki horses, and the next she’s pushing his legs apart and sliding over his shin and then he’s there inside her again, different but the same, warm and wet and driving him insane.

He’s not even hard when she does it, but he gets there so fast he goes very briefly blind.

She’s bold but clumsy at first, and he doesn’t want to shame her or make her feel embarrassed but he also doesn’t want her to accidently chew on his cock so he gives her instructions in whispers and half-words, gentle touches, being free with his gasps and moans so she knows how much he’s enjoying it. She gets the hang of it quickly, and Jaime is in the middle of a clever quip about her natural talent as a swordsman when she suddenly takes a deep breath and braces herself and then slides his cock all the way down her throat.

As it turns out, Brienne has no gag reflex. Jaime doesn’t make any clever quips about that because he’s too busy coming so hard it feels like he sprained something.

He’s totally wiped out after that, so wiped out he falls asleep a couple minutes later and wakes up in the early morning hours to a tidal wave of self-disgust and guilt that he immediately tries to assuage by waking her up so he can put his tongue between her legs. Brienne is, in turns, confused, irritated, resigned, and finally devastated with pleasure, not once but three times. She falls back to sleep on Jaime’s chest, her body still shaking with aftershocks, and he drifts off himself as he strokes her hair with his good hand and gently massages his jaw with the end of his stump.

Late that morning, much later than normal, Brienne rouses herself and Jaime and stumbles into her armor, very much looking like she would rather stumble back into bed and into him. He watches her adjust the buckles and fitted scales of metal with the blankets pulled up to his waist and his upper body sprawled lasciviously back against the pillows.

“Don’t go.”

“I must. Lady Sansa barely stopped for breath yesterday and I’m late to attend her as it is.”

“Nonsense. After getting the Essosi on the road, we deserve at least a day to rest…on top of each other.”

She rolls her eyes at him. He remembers her only two nights ago, _“you don’t want me,”_ and now she’s confident enough in how crazy he is about her that she can roll her eyes like a sulky schoolboy at a septon.

Good. Let her trust him enough to do things like that without being scared he’ll take offense and leave. Let her trust him with more than her life, more than what was at stake during the Long Night, let her trust him with her heart.

Brienne finishes buckling on the last plate and glances back at him, a little taken aback when she sees how soft and tender his expression has gone as he stares at her. She softens too, and comes over to the bed, leaning down and cradling his face in one gloved hand as she kisses him. He imagines he can still taste himself in the back of her mouth, even though she’s gargled with saltwater.

“My lady needs me,” she murmurs, and he nods, smiling.

“She’s not the only one.” He kisses her again, his fingers pressing right at the nape of her neck. “I love you.”

Brienne goes brilliant red but doesn’t look away from him. He’s said these words to her at least five times in the last two days, keeping count, enjoying them more each time, reveling in the novelty of saying them and meaning them to someone who doesn’t treat the sentiment like money in the bank. He’s always been free with his words, even when he shouldn’t be, he likes to reinforce the good and bad realities of the world by speaking them aloud. She’s more circumspect, but it doesn’t bother him. Brienne wouldn’t be Brienne if she could easily toss around the words “I love you,” not after everything she’s been through. It just means he gets to treasure it from her every time, something rare and shy, like a shaft of light piercing sapphire waters in between summer storms.

And anyways, when she looks at him like that, he knows it more absolutely than if she said the words all day for a year.

She rests her forehead against his for a moment, then pulls back and squares her shoulders. It makes her appear a commander and a knight, and it also makes him want to jump on top of her and go to town. She can tell, and takes a quick step back from the bed even as she blushes again.

“I’ll see you tonight, all right? In…in here.”

What was she about to say? _“My chambers?” “Our chambers?”_ Jaime wonders but doesn’t ask, not yet. He hopes there will be time to figure that out, to ask if she would be willing to share a bed and a room and a life, whatever he has, anything she wants. Will she take him and all his awful baggage? How would she react to Cersei’s specter hovering at the corners of his mind, clawing at him, constantly trying to pull him backwards? Can she really forgive his sins as thoroughly as she says she has?

He trusts her enough to find these things out. He wants to try, he wants to do it all at once and he wants it to take forever. He wants her too, in those same ways.

“Until then, Brienne.”

Brienne nods, adjusts Oathkeeper at her hip, and then gives him a brief smile _(Gods she’s like a bloody painting, all shine and strength and sweetness, what have I gotten myself into)_ and then she’s gone.

Jaime settles back against the pillows, fully prepared to be lazy for at least another hour before getting out of bed and going to see what needs doing. His brother is still here, fretting over yet another Targaryen, maybe Jaime can seek him out. Or Ser Davos, whom Jaime has come to enjoy for his bluntness and lack of affect. Or maybe he can find some breakfast. In the wake of yesterday’s frenzy, it seems to be a quiet day.

* * *

It’s Podrick’s fault. Which unfortunately means it’s also Jaime’s fault.

In retrospect, Jaime probably should have known. Podrick is a good lad, and more importantly he’s desperately loyal to Brienne, but he’s also not known for his ability to differentiate between situations worthy of discretion and situations that can be discussed over a pint of ale during the evening meal. And therein lies the trouble.

Jaime’s first inkling that something is amiss comes when he finally leaves the room, clothed and cloaked and golden hand still in place _(Brienne doesn’t need it or want it, she takes it off when they make love, he’s been thinking about that a lot)_. In spite of his protestations about being lazy and taking a day of rest, he finds himself energized and happy to be moving. Maybe the Northern air is good for him after all.

Or maybe he came down his lady’s throat last night and later had her falling apart on his tongue and that’s put the spring in his step. Either, or.

Jaime makes his way down to the main hall, where breakfast is still laid out. The number of men and women hunkered down at the tables suggests that he wasn’t wrong about needing to recuperate from yesterday, even if he knows Lady Sansa will be demanding work on repairs and fortifications continue without a break. He admires that girl, much as it makes him bristle to admit it. She’s not cruel or demanding but she is practical, and she pushes her people hard. She never makes a secret of why she does it though, and the loyalty they feel to a woman who cares for their well-being so deeply is iron-strong.

_(A better queen than Cersei could ever be.)_

He shakes away the thought as he helps himself to eggs and toast, and that’s when he realizes people are staring at him. Which isn’t necessarily new, he’s the Kingslayer and the Lannister heir (and he knows he’s handsome, he can’t help it) so people have stared at him his whole life. But not at Winterfell, not this time. Either they don’t recognize him through the beard and greying hair or they spare a quick look of derision and distrust before moving on. He’s just another soldier here, and he’s found himself enjoying it more than he’d have ever thought.

Now they’re staring. And whispering. And it makes him nervous.

Jaime glances around the room for a familiar face and finds not one but three: Ser Davos, Podrick, and of all people the Hound, sitting at the end of a bench. He goes to join them, the stares following him across the hall floor.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he says in what he hopes is a casual tone as he sets his plate down beside Davos. Their heads swivel towards him and all at once he’s greeted with three very different expressions: a look of fear and contrition on Pod, a slight and well-controlled smirk on Davos, and hard blunt distaste from the Hound (as always). He’s not encouraged by any of them.

“Ser Jaime,” replies Davos, inclining his head. The Hound snorts and shoves a rasher of bacon in his mouth.

“You slept well, Clegane?” says Jaime innocently. The Hound is terrifying but he’s not hard to get the truth out of if you piss him off enough _(but not too much, Gods forbid)_.

“I slept on this bench, you pampered cunt. Not all of us can fuck Brienne of Tarth in a feather bed,” the Hound grunts back through a mouthful of bacon.

Jaime’s heart lurches.

“I didn’t. We didn’t.”

The words come from an automatic place, like his hand going to his sword hilt or his feet widening to a fighting stance. The Hound snorts again and chews with his mouth open.

“Everybody and their aunt knows you did. ‘Tween the pair of you fuckin’ each other with your eyes all the time and the lad tellin’ half the castle—"

“Podrick!”

Jaime turns on the young squire, who is blushing furiously now and staring down into his goblet like it might swallow him whole and save him from this conversation.

“Don’t be too hard on the boy, he was only pleased for the both of you,” Davos says conciliatorily. “It’s all folks can seem to talk about, especially what with how long it was in coming.”

“How long—you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaime growls, his stomach churning. Pod glances up at him, flinching like Jaime might hit him.

“I’m so sorry, Ser Jaime, I just—you sent me for Ser Brienne the other night and I thought—so when Lord Tyrion asked where I had run off to, I—but I didn’t mean to tell anyone else!”

“Like fuck you didn’t,” says the Hound, taking a swig of ale. “Came right back down to the hall with a big dumb grin on your face and said it was about time Jaime Lannister got a leg over, your lady knight wasn’t going to wait forever.”

“I didn’t—not like that!” Pod cries, eyes darting between the Hound and Jaime. “It just—sort of came out during—and nothing indecent! I would never suggest that you and my lady—you and my ser—my, um—”

“What’s indecent about fucking a good woman after a battle?” the Hound snarls. He glances at Jaime, the scars on his face stretching grotesquely as he grins. “Or bein’ fucked by one. That’s what most of the talk seems to be about, how you two get down to business. That golden hand come to any use?”

Every once in a while, Jaime can feel his right hand move, like a ghost passing through his arm for the briefest of moments. Right now, his missing hand is clenching so hard the nonexistent nails might pierce the nonexistent flesh. The whine of panic, oh so familiar, has him pinned to his chair, silent, trying to find a way out of this.

“I applaud you on your choice of a lady, ser. That woman’s a force unto herself.” Davos mercifully cuts the smirking Hound and sputtering Pod off, his Flea Bottom accent making his words jump like oil on a hot pan. “Stannis was lost body and soul by the end, but Ser Brienne gave him a clean death with justice for Lord Renly and for herself. A noble fighter.”

“I kicked her in the cunt once,” Clegane says, grabbing more bacon with his greasy fingers. “Sorry if the parts down below are a bit mangled.”

Jaime hears the scrape of the bench and Podrick’s gasp before he realizes he’s on his feet. The Hound barely notices, chuckling darkly. “Sit down, boy, I’m only joking. Not about the kick, though, ask her. That was a hell of a fight. She tell you she bit my ear off?”

Jaime opens his mouth to tell them again that nothing happened, he’s not fucking Brienne, she’s not his, he didn’t touch her— _“deny deny deny,”_ always the way with Cersei and him, always the necessity to protect each other and their children. Misdirection, counter-attack, distraction, anything that shoves the eyes of the world away from his bed and who’s in it, because if they find out—

_Wait a fucking minute._

Jaime’s thoughts screech to a halt. The main hall echoes around him. He meets Clegane’s gaze and sees a glint of approval in those beady, ugly little eyes. Beside him, Podrick is gripping the table, anxious and eager. Davos is just smirking a bit, unperturbed.

_None of them have the power to cut us down or hurt us for what we’ve done. And if they try, we could fight them off. Brienne could. She beat the Hound. She beat me. She’s the best of all of us._

“…no,” he says, slightly alarmed at the feeling of a smile stretching the corner of his mouth. “She never told me about your ear.”

“Well ask her sometime,” Clegane replies. “Bloody vicious. Have to respect that.”

Jaime slowly sits back down, testing out every second of this new feeling. People know, about him and Brienne. They _(they)_ are not a secret. Anyone who looks at her or him is in the right to think of the other, because they are together _(together)_ and people know about it.

This has never happened to him _(them)_ before.

“We _did_ fuck,” he says to himself, tasting the words out loud. Ser Davos raises an eyebrow.

“I would hope you’d _know_.”

“She’s mine,” Jaime says, not listening. “And I’m hers. And Podrick told you all.”

“I didn’t!” Pod insists again, but Jaime lays his golden hand on his shoulder and looks the squire dead in the eyes.

“Thank you, Pod. Really.”

“Uh,” is Podrick’s response. He looks like he can’t decide if Jaime is serious or if he’s about to get punched in the face.

The Hound rolls his eyes and stuffs what must be at least three eggs into his mouth at once. Davos smirks and toasts Jaime with his goblet. “To life and living, my friend.”

“Will she be angry with me, do you think?” Podrick asks, anxious.

“Probably,” Jaime says vaguely. He’s still trying to get his feet back on the ground.

_(Was that why people were staring, is he really going to be known as the man who fucked Brienne of Tarth, could he possibly be that lucky)_

“Aye, though she ought not to be,” Davos adds through a mouthful of sausage. “No offense, Ser Jaime, but between the two of you she’s the war hero and sworn night to the Lady of the North, she’s got all the respect she needs. Gossip won’t make a difference.”

The words bring Jaime back to earth with an unpleasant jolt. He knows Davos means well, but he also knows that isn’t true, much as it should be. The look on Podrick’s face betrays the same doubt and frustration that Jaime feels.

Between the two of them they probably know Brienne better than anyone else in the Seven Kingdoms, in part because they’ve seen her on both sides of the line she tries to walk, the woman and the warrior. They’ve seen her standing miles high in her armor, sword shining, feet flying, a deadly force for good and honor in a world that preys on such things. But they’ve also seen her being spat on and jeered at, dragged off to have her legs wrenched apart in dark corners, labeled a dumb bitch and a stupid woman and a freak of nature. They both know how soft she is beneath the plates and the blades, and they both love her enough to see how the hurt has shaped her blunt edges.

Brienne deserves respect more than anyone Jaime has ever known, and just when she’s finally got it, word gets around that she’s opened her legs for the Kingslayer out of wedlock. Jaime and Podrick love her, and Jaime and Podrick keep slowing her down, even when they promised they wouldn’t.

“She’ll know you didn’t do it on purpose, Pod,” Jaime tells him, trying to sound more optimistic than he is. Podrick chews his lip and doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s not fair,” he says, “not to her.”

Even though the statement is childish it makes Jaime see Podrick as a man in a way that even fighting beside him during the Long Night didn’t.

_“HEY, FANCY FUCKER!”_

They all jump, even the Hound, as that giant fucking Wildling storms up to their table, flanked by a couple of his tribesmen or countrymen or whatever they are, his finger out and in Jaime’s face.

“You took her!” he bellows, red hair flying and his beard full of half-chewed herring. “Right out from under me, you stole off with her and kept her away from me ever since! You don’t even have the fuckin’ decency to share!”

Jaime fights the urge to roll his eyes, at least not when this idiot is directly in front of him with a posse of hulking Northern savages backing him up. But he’s not going to back down or walk away either, not when it comes to Brienne. “She’s not a flagon of wine or a new horse. And if you keep talking about her like she is—”

“Fuckin’ southern folk, helpin’ themselves to what’s not theirs,” he continues like Jaime hasn’t even spoken. “If you wanted her you coulda had her all these years, but once a better man comes along to do right by a good woman, you snatch her back!”

“You try ‘snatching’ Brienne, see how far she lets you get,” Jaime says with disgust. And yet he can’t ignore that sinking feeling in his stomach, because this giant fucking Wildling has been panting after Brienne apparently since long before Jaime came north and he didn’t need years of banter and tension and betrayal and fragile trust to see how amazing she is, he clocked her value more accurately than Jaime had from the first moment, and maybe he’s right, maybe Jaime doesn’t deserve her now after all the time he’s wasted.

He’ll still fight tooth and nail for her, he just hates that giant fucking Wilding even more now.

They’re inches apart now, the giant fucking Wildling who isn’t actually so giant but just seems that way because he’s so loud and wide and smells so bad (at least to Jaime) puffing out his chest, and Jaime can feel the low morning chatter around them quiet as people start to turn and look. Podrick clears his throat and presses closer to Jaime’s right, trying to slip a shoulder in between the two men. The giant fucking Wildling sweeps him back with one arm like he weighs nothing.

“You treat her good?” he breathes, and Jaime’s jaw clenches. “You get her wet, make her happy?”

“You—”

Davos leaps to his feet but the giant fucking Wildling doesn’t need his help to block Jaime’s golden hand when it comes up to strike him. He catches the blow on the thick fur of his sleeve and shakes his head, looking at Jaime like he would look at a stupid child having a tantrum.

“Keep your fancy furs on, I’m only makin’ sure she’s taken care of,” he growls. “I would give it to her real good, like she deserves, but if she wants you then you better do her right.”

The other Wildling men are nodding seriously. Jaime isn’t sure what he wants to do more, knock this giant fucking Wildling’s teeth out or tell him just how good he gives it to Brienne, and just how wet he gets her, and how he’s going to spend the rest of his life doing right by her if she’ll let him.

The giant fucking Wilding’s blue eyes gleam as he looks Jaime up and down. “And if she decides next she wants a real cock and not a southern twig, you remember I let you have her first. Where I come from, if a man loses out on a woman, he _takes_ it like a man.”

“Speak of her that way again and all you’ll be taking is my sword between your eyes,” Jaime spits back. The giant fucking Wildling takes a step closer, as do the men behind him. Podrick moves closer to Jaime’s right shoulder, and Davos clear his throat. The hall around them seems to have gone very quiet all of a sudden.

The tension breaks when Hound stops swigging ale long enough to let out of a bark of laughter.

“You sound like a pair of cunt-struck greenboys. Ser Brienne could have both your cocks on toast if she wanted, stop bitching and leave it alone. It’s bad enough we’re all stuck in here together, you don’t have to ruin breakfast.”

Jaime doesn’t step back because he’s scared, or because he cares what the Hound thinks. He steps back because it’s true about Brienne, she doesn’t need him to defend her. If that giant fucking Wildling wants to try his luck still, then let him. Brienne will indeed have his cock on toast.

Also, he really doesn’t want to get into a fight with three Wildlings with only Podrick for backup. There’s loyalty and then there’s suicide.

* * *

“Everyone and their aunt” is apparently an understatement.

Now that he knows why they’re staring and whispering, he can’t ignore it. Getting into a loud argument with the Wildlings in the middle of breakfast somehow doesn’t seem to have slowed the rumor mill, and there’s even more staring and pointing and chattering when they leave after breakfast. Jaime and Podrick head out to the yard where some of the Northern boys are training. Pod drills and Jaime watches, occasionally instructing from afar while he tries to keep track of all the faces peering at him and mumbling his name as they pass by.

The remaining Essosi soldiers and Wildlings all have an air of what Jaime may only be hoping is appreciation. A couple of times, when he looks up at the sound of whispers or they accidentally make eye contact while staring at him, he even gets a nod or two of approval, like a squire at a tourney who pulled off some handy footwork in a skirmish. He doesn’t speak their language, but he hears two phrases over and over again, “ _vīlībāzmio ābra_ ” and “ _zhokwa chiori._ ” When he asks Pod about them, the squire blushes and tells him that’s how the Unsullied and the Dothraki refer to Brienne respectively, battle-titles they feel she’s earned.

Jaime wonders what they call him.

He didn’t know so many people even knew who he was, let alone who he was fucking, but then again, he supposes that even in the freezing North, surrounded by barbarians, he’s got a bit of a reputation, especially for whom he fucks. And Brienne is far more visible here than she was in the Stark war camp or in King’s Landing, where people automatically wrote her off the moment they saw she wasn’t interested in being fuckable or cleaning things. Here, she’s a war hero, sworn sword to Lady Sansa, worthy sparring opponent to Arya Stark herself. The Wildlings are all in awe of her (with one giant fucker standing out), as are the Dothraki, and even the Unsullied seem to find her impressive—Grey Worm let her examine his pronged spear and gave her a brief demonstration of proper technique during the feast. All these outsiders, they seem to recognize or even respect him for being chosen by Brienne.

It’s her own people who are being horrible.

Not all of them are, to be fair. The Westerosi women look at him with a strange intensity, even the tough old Northern birds who wouldn’t blink before putting a carving knife in his belly. He didn’t think Brienne got along with most women, those of the Stark family excluded, so he’s surprised that they seem to care. But he hears his name being whispered among knots of women, hears Brienne’s, watches them watching him, and he somehow gets the feeling that they’re…curious, more than anything else. About what, he’s not sure. But it doesn’t feel malicious.

The same can’t be said for the men.

Unlike everyone else, they don’t whisper around corners and look him up and down from across the yard. They speak directly to each other as they pass him, eyebrows raised, lips slanted in a smirk, looking everywhere but at the man they’re talking about. Amusement surrounds them like a cloud of sickly fumes, and he can feel it seeping into his clothes.

_“What’s worse, d’you think, a man who fucks his sister, a man who fucks beasts, or a man who fucks ‘em both? At least he always seems to go for blondes.”_

_“Imagine her on all fours, mooing like a heifer and him poundin’ away at her arse with his dead hand!”_

_“…what happens when you let a woman swing a sword!”_

It batters away at Jaime, like blows, like arrows, like the heat of dragonfire coming straight at him. He knows Podrick can hear it too, if the increasing volume of his steel clanging against that of opponents’ is any indication.

This is what they had silently dreaded in the main hall earlier. For every quip about Jaime there are ten about Brienne, all of them insulting her chastity, her looks, or both. The glee in their voices is poison. Ever since the North began to prepare for the battle against the dead and Lady Sansa gave Brienne a command and put her out in front of thousands of fighting men, they have hated her. Hated her for being a woman with a sword, hated her for using that sword better than any of them, hated her for not wanting to fuck them and hating her for not caring about their hate. Even those who have come to like and respect her would be happy for a reminder that, at the end of the day, she’s still just a woman with a cunt to fill and a back to break.

_“Poncy fuckin’ cripple, no wonder he needs a big strong bloke of a lady to fuck him.”_

_“She’s a big dumb whore…”_

_“Kingslayer’s whore…”_

_“I heard she’s got a cock down there as well as a cunt, and her tits are like cobblestones. Bet he’s gotta close his eyes and say his sister’s name just to get hard!”_

_“…fit that hunk of metal on his arm up her…”_

Now she’s done something that makes her happy and they’re thrilled to crucify her for it.

Jaime wishes he had his right hand back, just for an hour, just long enough to make these Northern fuckers sorry they ever crawled out of their frozen hovels long enough to insult Brienne of Tarth. If it weren’t for them, he might even be enjoying this—after all, his first reaction to all this was panic and his second reaction was that intense, wonderful relief. All Jaime knows of romance is secrets and shame and anger and hiding, and now it doesn’t have to be that way, he’s allowed to love Brienne in full view of the world.

_“Kingslayer’s whore!”_

_“…ugly troll of a woman…”_

_“…whore.”_

_“…the Kingslayer’s got himself an armored whore…”_

Except he’s not, because so much of what he loves about her makes other people hate and scorn her, and he doesn’t have to give a shit what they say about him but he doesn’t want to invite even more of the pain he wishes she didn’t know so well. Only one thing stops him from chasing after them and beating them into the dirt one by one, his fury soothed by the sound of their bones crunching under his boots. Brienne’s honor, a thousand times more precious and valuable than his own, is at stake here, and if she’s already the subject of gossip and talk then he’s not going to do anything to make it worse, not if he can help it. So he’s stuck listening to evil words and petty insults about the best woman the Gods ever made, taking it in silence because he wants to be worthy of her.

And that goes okay for a while, but if he’s really being honest with himself, it was pretty inevitable that he was going to snap.

That snap comes sometime after lunch, when Jaime has finally gotten so fed up with the hissing gossips that he shoves aside the humiliation of sparring with teenagers and faces off against Podrick. The boy is good, very good, well-taught by Brienne, but he doesn’t have Jaime’s years of experience, and even with his left hand Jaime can run him in circles. But it’s a distraction and it’s soothing in the way swordplay has always been, the music of steel and the dance of swords, and for a while he actually feels much better.

Then a harsh laugh and the phrase “Kingslayer’s whore” ring across the yard yet again and that’s it, that’s _it._

The source is a tall man, House Glover, Jaime thinks, with a head of thin black hair and a much thicker black goatee. He’s leaning against a pile of crates with four other men, also House Glover by the looks of them, watching Jaime and Podrick square off. Jaime turns to look at him without warning Podrick, who promptly whacks him in the ribs with the training sword.

“OW!!”

“Sorry, ser, sorry!” Podrick cringes. The Glover men don’t bother to hide their snickers.

“Think he likes it rough like that, lads?” says the tall man, a wide grin revealing two missing teeth. “Think she fucks him with a tourney sword at the same time she’s takin’ it from his golden cock? I bet he makes her talk like his cunt sister—or no, she makes _him_ talk like her, puts a dress on him and fucks his skinny arse in half, a big dumb bitch who likes other bitches!"

He thrusts his hips forward grotesquely, making a sick groaning noise that is clearly meant to sound like Brienne but actually just sounds like a furious rushing in Jaime’s ears as he hefts his blunt sword and takes some long purposeful steps and has but a single pleasurable moment of watching the grin slide off that Tall Glover face before his golden hand crunches beautifully against a mouth of big Glover teeth.

Things go pretty predictably from there. The Tall Glover shouts and curses through his broken teeth and one of his mates tackles Jaime around the middle and they go down in a heap on the frozen earth of the yard. Jaime may be a poncy fuckin’ cripple but he’s also a Lannister fuckin’ lion, and he’s not wasted away just yet, he’s got more than enough muscle and fury to fight, and by the time he’s rammed his elbow into the other man’s gut and pushed him off long enough to stumble to his feet he sees that Pod is being bulldogged by two men who are already sporting black eyes _(bless that stupid brave boy, bless him for loving Brienne and serving her better than Jaime ever could)_ so of course he has to stumble over and kick one of those fuckers in the chest and fall on the other one with his blood-smeared golden hand, and there’s shouting all around them and in the midst of it he hears “ _mahrazh ki zhokwa chiori!”_ being chanted over and over, and then something heavy comes down on his head and 

* * *

“You’re such an idiot.”

It’s not the first time Jaime’s heard the sentiment and probably won’t be the last, certainly not from his little brother. It is the first time he’s heard it while waking up to a splitting headache though, and it doesn’t exactly help matters.

“Don’t sit up,” Tyrion says quickly when Jaime starts to rise, his soft little hands pushing Jaime’s shoulders gently back down onto the straw pallet. Jaime knows it’s straw because he can feel it poking into his neck and the back of his legs, and now he can hear the sound of talking far off and below, like through a window. He’s back inside the castle, then, probably over in the barracks-like chamber Pod shares with a number of other young men.

“Where’s Pod?” he mumbles through the throb in the back of his head. Tyrion rolls his eyes and nods at Jaime’s other side. Jaime turns to see Podrick sitting on another cot beside him, an egg over his right eye and a split lip, tunic still caked in mud. There’s a tight compression wrapping around his left shoulder, but he doesn’t look like the pain’s too bad. He gives Jaime a sheepish smile, wincing at the pull on his lip. Jaime grins back.

“Well fought, Pod. She’ll have to knight you after this.”

“I’m not sure Ser Brienne wishes to be in the same kingdom as the two of you right now, let alone shower you with honors.” Tyrion does something at his side and Jaime winces as pain shoots through his ribs. He takes an experimental deep breath and holds back a groan: probably not broken, definitely bruised, definitely annoying. Tyrion sits back on the cot on Jaime’s other side, rolling his eyes at his big brother’s self-satisfied smirk.

“So she heard.”

“About Jaime Lannister doing his best to start another war by attacking Winterfell's men? Yes, dear brother, the whole bloody North heard. You’re lucky the Queen already had a grudge against you for trying to charge her dragon. She’s taking this as poetic justice rather than a disciplinary problem to be summarily dealt with.”

“I don’t give a shit about the Dragon Queen,” Jaime mumbles, loud enough for Tyrion to hear but not loud enough that they’ll have to acknowledge it and deal with that particular issue right now. One bout over loyalty at a time. “I give a shit about Brienne. She’s unhappy?”

“I’m not sure,” Pod says thickly, his lip clearly still painful. “She arrived with Lady Sansa just after they got you in the head with the shovel—”

“Shovel?”

“It wasn’t being used for manure, don’t worry,” says Tyrion helpfully. Jaime fights the urge to poke at his skull in search of cracks.

“But she helped me off the ground and then she and one of the Dothraki carried you up here—”

“What were the Dothraki doing there!” Jaime interrupts again. Tyrion grins.

“Cheering for you. Apparently they’re quite enamored with your lady, and now you’ve won their approbation. Not your lady’s, of course, but theirs.”

“But she wouldn’t look at me!” cries Pod, unwilling to be distracted from fretting over Brienne’s ire. “And once she saw the maester put snow on your head and say you’d be all right she went right off again to Lady Sansa.”

He looks down, shamefaced. Jaime knows how much his knight’s love and approval mean to Podrick, and he feels a little bad about letting the boy get involved with the brawl.

But he feels much, much better about the brawl itself.

“Are they still alive?”

“Oh, you mean your noble opponents? Yes, they are.” Tyrion’s tone suggests the outcome is not particularly to his taste. “Bleeding and battered and livid, but alive. House Glover is demanding retribution.”

“House Glover arrived a day after the Long Night ended, House Glover doesn’t get shit.”

“I think Lady Sansa and Lord Snow have a similar feeling. Certainly it helps that the tall one felt the need to repeat his loving description of Ser Brienne when she arrived on the scene with Lady Sansa. I imagine he’s the only one glad you didn’t get another good blow in.”

Jaime’s own smile fades. Gods, he knew she was probably exposed to some of the same things he’s been hearing today, now that Lady Sansa wasn’t so busy and her attention had time to drift to the jackasses around her, but he hates hates _hates_ the idea of Brienne having to hear that garbage spoken out loud before her lady. He imagines how embarrassed she must be, how desperately she would have wanted to burrow inside her armor and leave that place at once, no matter her anger.

_(I keep hurting her.)_

“She won’t be angry for long,” says Tyrion soothingly, trying and failing to grasp what’s bothering Jaime. “Women love having their honor defended.”

“Brienne’s honor needs no defense from me or her or anyone,” Jaime grits out, and Podrick hums in agreement. Tyrion raises an eyebrow but stay quiet as he gets up and goes to fetch a plate of bread and cheese and a silver flagon, out of which he pours (to Jaime’s relief, with his aching head) clean water rather than wine.

“Try to eat something. Maester Tarly patched you both up like a master builder but you’ll need your strength for the next few days.”

“What are you doing here, then? Don’t you have schemes and plots and the Dragon Queen’s fancy coatmaker to tend to?” Jaime asks, stuffing bread and cheese in his mouth. He may ache all over and have a headache like an iron spike in his skull but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his little brother is basically running the world right now. Well, this half of it, anyway.

“First, and I don’t know how many times I have to say it, schemes and plots are the same thing. Second, I’m busy tending to my stupid big brother and his equally stupid sidekick,” Tyrion sniffs, ignoring the Dragon Queen comment. “And third, I’m here to make sure your brain works, since we might need it soon.”

“My brain? What for?”

“You’ve done more than a little military strategizing in your time, brother, and although the winter seems to be settling in for at least a while, our war is not half done. We’ll need this time to decide on a plan of attack for when the weather passes, and we could more than use your help.”

Jaime’s stomach churns. _A plan to attack Cersei,_ he thinks, and for the first time in days he thinks of the babe that may or may not be there, the child he may or may not owe a father. Cersei has floated through his mind like a dark cloud briefly blocking out the sun, but as long as Brienne is nearby he’s gotten better at finding his way rapidly back into sunlight. The baby, though—Cersei and the innocents she surrounds herself with, a human shield of naivete and love—he doesn’t want to attack any of them, he’s had so much of the guilt and the shame, he’s had so much of failing at the most important tasks.

“They don’t trust me,” he says quietly. “Your Queen and Ned Stark’s bastard and Lady Sansa. I killed her father and pushed their baby brother out a window, anybody with a brain in their heads wouldn’t trust me, and between the three of them they’ve got at least one.”

Tyrion rolls his eyes but takes a moment to answer.

“Brienne trusts you. And they trust her.”

There she goes again, saving him, helping him find his way to a purpose. He’d get his head smashed in a thousand more times for her if he has to (and he may have to).

“So,” Tyrion says suddenly, and Jaime can already hear it in his voice, a change in the subject motivated by Tyrion’s own particular brands of empathy and curiosity. “How exactly did you win her trust?”

Jaime looks up at the lascivious smile on his brother’s face and actually finds himself blushing _(Gods, get ahold of yourself, Lannister)_. Behind them Podrick coughs and shifts around, maybe turning his back _(good lad)._

“None of your business.”

“Oh come on, give me a taste.”

“You know I just smashed a man’s teeth in, don’t you?”

“For insulting your lady, not asking what gives her pleasure! Jaime, our whole lives, I’ve never once been able to commiserate with you on this. Now you can finally give me a good war story about the cunt of a wonderful girl who neither of us is related to—”

“Tyrion!”

“Fine, fine, if you’re going to be so crabby about it. It’s just as well you only put your cock somewhere I can stand to think about when I’ve been celibate for years. How the Gods play games.”

“I’m not telling you about me and Brienne!”

Tyrion grins. “Not now, you mean, and certainly not sober. But one of these days, Jaime, I’m going to hear about how _you_ finally have to climb for it.”

Podrick audibly cringes over on the other cot, and Jaime scoffs at his dog of a younger brother, but unfortunately, he doesn’t doubt that Tyrion is right about him talking. Not when he can’t contain the way Brienne makes him feel, the pure sunburst of _she loves me and I love her and we are here_ already threatening to erupt out of him at any given moment. In spite of the cruelty and petty ridicule, or the strange and somewhat unnerving admiration, or his own fuckups that might have justly upset her for the foreseeable future, loving out in the open is ecstasy compared to the sneaking and stealing away he’s always known. Let him defend his lady without pretense, let him praise her soul and her mind and her body to someone he trusts, let him claim her at both of their best and worst.

He knows Brienne’s angry with him right now, and that history both recent and ancient are still in play. But this is the beginning of their own history, and it was never going to be dull. What they have is not perfect but it is bliss, and he wants to tell everyone.

“Gods, look at your face,” Tyrion snorts, and Jaime realizes he may have been thinking too loudly. “One whiff of a good woman and you look like you’ve been kicked in the head by a horse. Is everyone stupid but me?”

* * *

She’s not saying anything.

Jaime tries not to squirm. Or speak first. Doing either will put him in an even weaker position, and with a sore head and chest he’s already pretty weak.

The room is warm, just how she likes it, and he hopes it might remind her of their first night together _(three days ago, how is that possible, it seems like a lifetime and the blink of an eye both)_ and soften her slightly. The fire roars, chewing up all the logs he carefully piled on with one hand. He considered finding more food and drink to create another indoor picnic, but even _he_ isn’t charming enough to pull that off right now, much as he would like to believe he is.

She’s standing just inside the door, which she shut and locked with a deliberateness he found slightly foreboding. Her armor is a heavy wall around her, and her blue eyes pin him to the wall as effectively as ever. Jaime shuffles his feet, wishing she would speak and save him from having to eat shit just a little bit longer.

No such luck.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he says, deciding to start off simple. Her sole response is the twitch of an eyebrow. “I never meant to embarrass you.”

“Then what _did_ you mean to do, ser?”

He didn’t expect her to speak, and he tries to pretend he didn’t jump a bit at the bite in her voice, ringing and heavy like a greatsword.

“I meant, ah, to address a grievance I had with a fellow soldier. I regret I did it with so little—"

“Sense?” Her mouth bends slightly around the word, the corners going up, almost like—

_(Wait. Is that—is she teasing me?)_

“Diplomacy,” he replies, watching her closely now. She inclines her head, those endless unreadable eyes boring into him.

“A courtyard brawl is not the most productive of diplomatic strategies.”

“No, but it certainly gets the message across.”

She takes a couple steps forward, bent plates in her armor scraping gently against each other. His skin begins to buzz rather pleasantly, but he doesn’t move. It’s not worth the risk if he’s wrong.

“And what message was that?” She stands by the end of the bed, so tall, so solid. The firelight licks up and down her frame and he envies it.

“That he should keep his opinions to himself,” Jaime says. He waits for her to move again, and she does. Now they’re mere feet apart.

“His opinions on what, ser?”

“On his betters.”

“Insubordination should be punished by a commander, not by another soldier.”

“True, but being a cunt should be punished by another cunt.”

“You speak of yourself, Ser Jaime?” she asks, and he knows he’s not imagining it now, not when her eyes finally leave his to dip down over his body and then back up to burn right into him. He licks his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and her eyes catch that movement too.

“I do, Ser Brienne.”

“You _can_ be quite a pain in the arse at times.”

Even in the charged atmosphere, he has to smile. “A useful talent, my lady, but one that should be exercised by men who know their place better than that Glover did.”

“You never know your place. You always imagine yourself much higher or much lower than you truly are at any given time. You do not see yourself well, ser.” She takes one more step, and his chest is almost touching her breastplate. It’s impossible but he imagines he feels heat coming off her, much stronger than the fire, a blast of island sun.

“Indeed, my lady. I see others much better.”

Her face is flushed, mouth slightly open, nostrils flaring. It’s been years since he touched her, decades, at least that’s what it feels like, every part of him is screaming to reach out and—

“You see me?”

Deep breath, her eyes, a locked door.

“Only you.”

They crash together, and Jaime finds out what it’s like to kiss someone in full armor: uncomfortable, frustrating, and desperately arousing. She’s all flat metal and cold plates and hard unforgiving seams, but he can feel _her_ beneath everything, the way her ribs expand with rapid breath, the shifting of her weight as she rocks against him, the warm give of her skin so close to his fingertips, and he wants to get inside and stay on the outside at the same time, keep kissing her filthy and deep with his one hand buried in her hair and move his mouth over every inch of her, all of it together, all at once.

“Jaime,” she pants, and every time she says his name like that his body lights up all over and he loses control of himself, sucking hard on her tongue and growling like a lion facing down a kill. He runs his stump _(the golden hand is on the table, it’s done its part for her today)_ down her armored side and then in over the stomach of her breastplate and finally slips it underneath the plate altogether to find the waist of her breeches. He doesn’t bother trying to shove them down, instead shoving his own wrist into the tight warm space between the fabric and her stomach, and even though his hand is gone he’s still made of skin and flesh and he can feel the heat of her, feel the shudder that goes through her when he clumsily worms the end of his stump down to where he thinks, hopes, prays is the right place, and when she gasps and grinds forward on him, rubbing her hips in frantic jerky movements against his ruined hand, he knows he got it right.

Her hands are all over him, clutching at his hips, his throat, his arms. Her head falls forward into the curve of his neck and she moans, biting at the muscle there. Jaime fights very hard not to come on the spot _(focusing on the ache of his ribs helps)_. His free hand, the one she’s not trying to ride while standing on her own two feet, scrabbles at her back, nails clicking against the dark blue steel.

“Get it _off_ ,” she hisses, and part of him wants to refuse and try it like this, keep her wrapped in the armor he commissioned, see the sword he gave her there at her hip, fall to his knees or push her onto the bed and fuck Brienne of Tarth just like this with her warrior’s steel and hero’s glory still on show. He wants to seek out the tiny vulnerable places in her solid strength, be the one person in the world who can look at this miracle of a woman as she strides across a battlefield and know that she came apart inside that armor like the woman she is, came apart for _him,_ shaking and moaning, pleasure swelling underneath the metal shell, and she lets him do that, she takes down her defenses just long enough for him to come inside and drive her mad and make her feel loved and worshipped as a woman and a warrior should—

Part of him wants that, and plans on it, another time. But for now, she could ask him to set out for the Wall wearing nothing but his golden hand and he’d do it, he’ll do anything for her.

Removing armor isn’t exactly a sensual activity though, especially with only three hands, and the passion recedes a bit as they struggle with buckles and belts and tricky straps. At one point Brienne pinches her finger between two plates and swears, and Jaime snorts before he can stop himself, and then she hits him in the shoulder and it makes his ribs hurt and she can tell from the sound he makes and she looks so guilty and upset he has to kiss her, and then they lose track of the armor for a bit, but when Jaime tries to hump against her hip and hits the edge of a cuisse he swears and doubles over and the whole thing starts again, only with more irritation and bruising.

Eventually _(finally, FINALLY)_ they’re both naked, the armor and breeches and tunics scattered across the floor, and Jaime takes a moment to reward himself by looking over her. She’s sitting back on the bed, panting a little with the exertion of removing those last few articles, and he gets a rare moment to just drink her in: her strong shoulders, the tight curve of her breasts and the way the nipples taper to delicious points, the surprisingly roundness of her ass as it fills out behind square hips, the truly unbelievable length of her legs, her big flat feet, her funny square belly button, her muscular arms, her little ears, her cornsilk hair—

“Jaime?” she says, the question of it tentative on her tongue. She’s looking up at him, which is rare when his lady is tall as an oak tree, but he likes this angle, likes being able to cup her face with his good hand and bend her backwards, slowly, his stump pressed to the small of her back to guide her down until she’s lying on the bed.

“Brienne,” he answers, and drops to his knees, ready to press forward and taste her again _(and again and again and again)_ , feels her powerful thighs squeeze him, enjoy the ache in his tongue as he drives her crazy just like he did last night—

But suddenly a hand is in his hair, tugging firmly but gently and he looks up to see her staring down at him, propped up on her other elbow, her brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, petting her right hip. She tilts her head slightly to the side.

“You thought I was angry with you,” she says quietly. He shifts on the balls of his feet, his knees protesting as he tries to look at her and away from her at the same time. He’s glad that her position on the bed means she can’t see his cock, rock-hard and points up towards her like the needle on a compass towards true north. Things like that make it hard to carry on a serious conversation.

“Yes,” he admits.

“About what you did to the Glovers.”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

He shakes his head as his fingers dig into the meat of her thigh. “I won’t repeat it.”

“I heard it all day, Jaime,” she tells him, and he can’t decide if he’s reassured that she only sounds a little sad or heartbroken that she’s too used to it to be any sadder. “And I’ve heard it before, many times. You won’t surprise me.”

“You’ve heard it before?”

“Of course. People have been calling me the Kingslayer’s whore since Harrenhal. Our escort to King’s Landing took bets on which end you favored.”

She says it so plainly. She says it like he shouldn’t be surprised, like if he is he’s a fool. And so he must be, because he never—they didn’t—was he just not listening, or—

“Women hear these things our whole lives, even me,” she says quietly, and the hand in his hair slides down to cup his face where his cheeks are burning hot. “It’s not worth bothering about, not when that just makes it worse. Today, when I found out you had—done what you did—”

“Beat the tar out of those wretches,” he says through clenched teeth. He should have fought harder, he should have killed them, as retribution for every word out of the mouth of every man who has ever slandered Brienne.

“Exactly.” She sits up now, both hands cupping his face, looking down at him with eyes wide and blue as the ocean. Her legs squeeze his shoulders gently, like she’s trying to wrap him up in herself. He would love that. “Jaime, you can’t stop them.”

“I can try,” he replies. Brienne tries not to smile, but he sees it and he snatches it for himself, rising up to kiss her even as his knees shriek with protest from bearing his weight on the floor too long. She bites his lower lip gently and pulls away a bit.

“I _should_ be angry with you. Lady Sansa wasn’t happy.”

“Lady Sansa can go fu—”

“Jaime!”

“Well she can, if she won’t let me fight for you and won’t do it herself.” Jaime runs his hand up her side, cups a breast, pinches the nipple between thumb and middle fingers and savors her gasp. “It’s not your job to go through the world alone, Brienne.”

She gasps again, but not because of his fingers. He wraps his other arm around her and pulls her close, resting his forehead against hers.

“I shouldn’t need to be defended,” she mumbles, and he smirks.

“You don’t _need_ defending, I told Tyrion the same thing earlier today. But wanting to be defended and enjoying it when someone offers doesn’t make you weak. Being loved and acknowledged make you stronger, Brienne, they are armor on your soul.”

She blinks, and he can see himself reflected in those unearthly eyes. “You have already given me a suit of armor, ser.”

“I guess it’s becoming a habit. Do you mind?”

Brienne presses her lips together tightly. Jaime knows she cries, has seen her cry, prepares himself to kiss more tears from her cheeks. But instead, she lets out a long wavering breath through her nose and strokes the tender skin under his eye with her thumb. He closes his eyes at the touch, gentle and slow like something he remembers from the safest parts of childhood.

“I love you,” she whispers.

They sit in silence for a little while after that, and the warmth of her thumb on his face and her legs on his biceps almost makes Jaime forget about earlier when he was hard and panting and ready to get inside of her like yesterday. But just when he thinks he might try to worm his aching bones up onto the bed beside her and curl up for the night like an old housecat, Brienne drops her other hand from his cheek and runs it down through the hair on his chest, over his nipple, nails digging in, and his cock suddenly decides it might not be ready to go to sleep after all.

“Come here,” she says softly, and she leans back, climbing the rest of the way onto the bed and settling her head and shoulders onto the pillows. He follows, moving over her gingerly so as not to bump his poor ribs, and he makes to lie on top of her but she guides him onto her left side, rolling over to face him.

“Can we…” she breathes, her hand in his hair, and he fucking loves how shy she is about this, even after last night when she stuck his cock all the way down her throat or the night before when she rode him long and hard until both of them were incoherent messes on the fur rugs and stone floor. She has trouble asking for things—soft touches, sweet words, public support in the face of ignorant morons—but when they are offered and she find the courage to accept them, it’s breathtaking.

“Yes, we can,” he tells her, and kisses her, abandoning all self-consciousness, trying to put _love_ and _want_ and _you, only you_ into every movement of his lips and tongue. She grabs onto him and kisses back, sloppy and excited, and his heart starts to race, and soon they’re writhing against each other like two teenagers in a hayloft, groaning and gasping and groping, no grace, no style, just feeling. Her right leg goes over his hip and pulls him in, he grabs at her thigh and buttock _(Gods these long long legs they’ll kill him any day now)_ as she undulates her hips and _oh_ , there it is, his cock is most definitely back in the game and the way she just slid against him, so fucking hot and slick and soft and if he doesn’t get in there now it might kill him, he might actually die of wanting.

“Wait,” she says breathlessly when he reaches down for her, and he whines like a kicked dog. Even flushed and panting as she is, she takes a second to roll her eyes before rolling the rest of herself over again, her back to him, her left leg coming up and bracing against the mattress.

“Brienne of Tarth,” he mutters as he shuffles awkwardly against her, his hand sliding over her stomach, his lips on her ear. “You’ve either been asking for tips or getting very creative.”

“I thought it might be better, for your ribs.” She sounds a little hurt, like she thinks he’s making fun of her. Jaime immediately resolves never to tease her when his cock is hard enough to split rocks because he’s just not on his game right now and he’s clearly getting it wrong.

“It is, no it is, I just—I want to do everything with you,” he breathes. “I want to try every single position and posture, everything that could possibly make you feel good, and when I’ve done them all I’ll start again with your favorites, you stubborn thoughtful woman, Brienne, please, let me just…”

His hand slides down past the coarse hair at the meeting of her thighs and into her, into the heat and the slickness, _fuck_ , the feeling on his fingers goes right to his cock and he rubs himself helplessly against her ass, moaning into the nape of her neck as he humps her and runs his fingers over her at the same time. It’s so good, her pressing on him in all the right places, the strength behind her leg as she throws it over his and the short strands of sweaty blonde hair that he can bury his face in and warm stretch of her back up against his chest, his cock squeezed tight and hot and rubbing smoother and smoother as they both sweat and he leaks.

For her part, she grunts low in her throat and reaches behind her to clutch at his hair, her hips shifting back against his thrusts and forward against his hand. She rolls her pelvis and something rubs just right and he freezes, biting his lip so hard he tastes blood.

 _(Do not come do not come do_ not _come like this like a greenboy on her backside even though it’s hot and firm and slick with sweat just two more up against her and you could NO JAIME LANNISTER FUCKING STOP SHE DESERVES BETTER THAN THAT)_

After a few seconds of shaking and screaming at himself in his head, Jaime relaxes slightly. Brienne is panting, her hips shifting restlessly against his hand and making it _really_ hard for him to calm back down. Aware that foreplay may be their downfall if they wait any longer, Jaime nudges her leg so it goes back up and shifts himself down just enough to guide his cock underneath and up and in and—

_(FUCK)_

It’s difficult to thrust as hard as he’d like when they’re on their sides like this, but Brienne was right, his ribs don’t ache the way they definitely would if he was on top. He grinds himself up into her, his hand briefly detouring from her cunt to her breasts as he bites hard on her shoulder, loving the solidity of the muscle beneath. Brienne sobs something and shoves herself back against him and his head spins, he gropes at her breast and nipple and then he needs to warm his fingers again down inside her, rocking in and in and in, loving the sounds she makes, loving the smell and the damp and the heat of them together, hearing someone speaking somewhere—

“—so good Brienne you’re so tight on me, oh Gods, _oh_ , squeezing the _life_ out of me, oh fuck I love it, I fucking love it, please, yes, more, I love _you_ , Brienne, I love you fighting and fucking and feeling, oh Gods _oh_ I love you, mine, mine, faster, yes—”

Oh. That’s him. Strange. He’s never talked with Cersei, ever, they couldn’t take the chance.

Jaime will ponder what that means for him and for this, but not right now, not when she’s starting to go wild and buck against him and brace her foot against the back of his legs to egg him on faster and faster, and he wants her to come first, he really desperately wants her to know _she’s_ the most important part of this whole fucking thing to him and in his sex-addled mind her orgasm is the only way to prove that, so he focuses everything on his fingers, on what he’s doing with them and how he’s moving them and how she responds even as he keeps thrusting, keeps fucking her, faster, harder, now, always now.

He feels it hit her like a bolt of lightning, her entire body going rigid for a moment before she bows almost in half and cries out, a wail that breaks halfway through, her hips stuttering wildly against his. Along with killing the Mad King and leaving the South to come here, Jaime considers it his greatest lifetime achievement that he actually holds still for a bit as she rides it out and comes down, gasping for air the way drowners do, gradually loosening the death-grip she has on the back of his neck. He nuzzles her ear and exhales shakily as she whimpers, shifting against him.

“Jaime…”

And that’s the end of that, because the second she says his name in that hoarse, ragged, stunned voice, he loses his mind all over again and starts to move, hips snapping back up to pace in no time, and the pitiful little cry she gives as she bends back to meet him is physically painful in his chest and he’s going harder faster faster harder he’s so close he’s going to need to pull out in a moment fuck—

 _“Thank you_ ,” she gasps, and he comes, vision going white, body spasming, pleasure flooding him and shorting out circuits, so intense it feels like dying and coming back.

* * *

The aftermath is fuzzy, and he lies there softening inside her _(damn it, he didn’t make it in time)_ with a kind of pleasant humming in his ears. Time passes, or maybe it doesn’t, maybe the gods just shove him forward because one second the windows are still glowing with a little late natural light and the next he’s waking up in pure darkness, not even the embers of the fire still burning. They’re lying right where they were atop the covers, and he’s fucking freezing.

_(As usual. Fuck the North.)_

Jaime tries to wriggle them both under the furs without waking Brienne, but it probably wouldn’t have been possible even with two hands. She snuffles a bit and reluctantly rolls away from him, sitting up and then leaning down to pull the chamber pot out from under the bed. He looks away while she uses it, focusing instead on getting his sluggish body and mushy mind to work together and get him under the furs and blankets. By the time Brienne returns, a vision of naked whiteness glowing in the dark, he’s created a nice little cocoon for her to join him in, all wrapped up in a bundle of covers. She crawls in beside him, grateful to put her already cold hands and feet all over his warm skin, and he manfully bites back a yelp.

“How’d they all find out?” she says sleepily, and it takes him a couple seconds to work out what she’s referring to.

“Podrick,” he grunts. Brienne goes still for a second, then sighs and continues arranging herself within the circle of his arms and the roll of furs.

“Of course. He thinks out loud.”

“That he does.” Jaime hums contently as she settles down, her head pillowed on his right bicep and her hands curled up against his chest. “Everyone would have known sooner or later, though. The Hound said something about us fucking with our eyes.”

“Excuse me?”

Jaime shrugs and settles back down, sleep already returning. “There will be something new and scandalous to gossip over soon enough. They’ll forget about us.”

“I don’t want them to forget,” she replies, and even through the fog of slumber his heart jumps a bit. “I want them to know that I—that we—”

“You are mine and I am yours,” he whispers, and he never in his life planned to say those words to anyone but one other person, but he never in his life planned to meet Brienne either, and look how that turned out.

“You are mine and I am yours, you sentimental old fool,” she yawns, and then there’s only quiet, the sounds of their breathing and the rustles of the castle around them and the finality of knowing that whatever comes next, it won’t find either of them alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews spur me to write like literally nothing else. Please, I need the spurring.


	3. Thirty-Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I'm not totally sure what happened here. It started out as a little internal rumination on Cersei and it turned into a Massive Angst-Spot of Feelings and No Porn. Which--yeah, I'm sorry about it, but it was a character thing, I had to do it. Back to Fun with Friends and Smutty Shenanigans in the next chapter, I swear.
> 
> For the record, I think Cersei is a great character who got screwed in seasons 7-8. I also think emotional abuse and the PTSD from it are v real and scary and inconvenient when all you want is good smutty fluff (btw both Brienne and Jaime suffer from that, him from his sister/family and her from basically everyone). But I love these characters and I want to do right by them, and while it may be a bit much to try and "resolve" it in one chapter, I wanted to give Brienne's self-esteem issues and Jaime's codependency issues a little room to breathe and make themselves known. These guys love each other to fucking bits but they're also fucked-up in their own ways, and we all know every happy ending comes with a lot of good meaty psychological evolution, right?
> 
> (Also I wanted Tyrion here for it but I was afraid it was gonna get too long and talky (EVEN MORE LONG AND TALKY) so I put him on a dragon, he'll get to say his piece eventually though, don't worry.)
> 
> (Also also Sansa is a fucking emotional health wizard at this point, don't @ me about that girl, I love her)
> 
> (Also also also sorry if you like Danaerys or Jon Snow, I'm not a big fan so when they show up it's gonna tend to be short and snarky, sorry not sorry)

**35 Days**

* * *

The raven from King’s Landing is battered, half-starved, and frozen nearly solid, but the news is good.

Well, not “good,” per se, but better than they’d hoped. Brienne’s not entirely clear on who’s got which spies where in the capital, although she’s under the impression Lord Varys has somehow managed to keep his own flock of little birds chirping over the last two years. But whoever it is sending the scroll, they write of blizzards and deep freeze all throughout the South, Blackwater Bay iced over, the Queen’s armies and the Golden Company reduced to huddling in barracks and burning wagons for fuel. A single line mentions the threat of famine, though apparently Cersei isn’t quite stupid enough to actively keep rationed food from her people—not yet, anyway. In the last month, the cold has brought Westeros to a grinding halt, and for the soldiers and smallfolk already exhausted by a battle with death, winter is, strangely enough, a welcome reprieve.

Lady Sansa seems acutely relieved when she reads the news. Her people are strong and tough but they’ve fought so many wars in such a short period of time. Brienne knows that Sansa has been dreading the possibility that the Dragon Queen will call for a march on King’s Landing the second she has proof that Cersei is making more use of this time than they are, but the raven’s news puts that possibility far out of reach. They’ve spent a month deep in snow, and it seems they may spend at least a few more.

Sansa may be pleased, but she’s not the majority. When they hear that Cersei is immobilized and the South is frozen solid, Danaerys Targaryen scowls and Jon Snow cringes, which seems to be about all the two of them ever do anymore, and the next day the Dragon Queen climbs onto her big black dragon and pulls Tyrion up behind her and sets off for Moat Caillin. The trip is ostensibly to check her forces quartered there, but Brienne can’t help but feel it’s also sulking on a rather epic level.

Jon Snow looks even more dour after she’s gone, which is impressive given how dour he already looks on a daily basis. Lady Sansa and Lady Arya, however, are practically bouncing through the halls of Winterfell. The Dragon Queen is not beloved here, not by the Northerners or the Wildlings or transplants from the South like Jaime and Pod and herself. Brienne finds the young woman intimidating but uneven, her defiant words and imperious demeanor often at odds with the realities of her circumstances. It reminds her too much of another queen who tends to see the world as she wants it to be, who acts impulsively and doesn’t think things through, who wields fire and blood without discretion or compassion.

One line in the scroll is scratched across her brain. Lady Sansa glances at her when she reads it out loud, expression trained to neutral but eyes quick and questioning. Brienne’s stomach hasn’t felt right since.

“Queen Cersei determined to wait out the freeze, appears in good health though growing skinny like all of us.”

_Skinny. No swollen belly, no heavy breasts. Is the babe simply small? Or is it not a babe but only another lie?_

_She’s still there. Buried in the snow but alive and breathing and there._

_And he is here, with me, thinking of there, with her._

* * *

Brienne is appalled with herself. Jealousy is the stupidest of emotions, it’s a _man’s_ emotion, it makes strong people weak and smart people stupid. When she was a child she faced jealousy in dark cave after dark cave, waving her ungainly arms and stamping her big feet at the images of dainty girls with soft voices and radiant smiles whose fathers were never disappointed and who garnered praise rather than scorn. She killed it in the end, after decades of warfare, a blade to the heart of the desire to be like other women. The night she met Jaime, when he was chained to a post and his sister’s name slithered from his mouth in a boast of fidelity and he looked her up and down only to pronounce her a beast, if even a woman at all, she was long past any pangs that might have once shot through her heart.

But now.

Now everything is different and her childhood enemies are rising from their graves like a new horde of wights, because Jaime wants her and she wants him and they are _together._ The impossible—that she could be loved back, wanted back, chosen first—is not only possible but happening, right now, and it’s got her right back at the beginning of her quest to kill those feelings. Approaching middle-age, Brienne finds herself reckoning with thoughts and fears she had successfully driven from her soul when she was still in her teens.

The jealousy is the worst, though. Her insecurities and nerves and shyness may be back but they can’t withstand Jaime, not the way he looks at her or the things he says or the feel of him. _You need trust to have a truce_ , she told him once, and somehow, unbelievably, she trusts him more than anyone else, she trusts him with the one part of her nobody has ever proven themselves capable of handling. When he makes a stupid joke, when he hooks his ankle lightly around hers at the supper table, when he leaves tingling purple marks all over her breasts and collarbone, he proves wrong all the whispers in her head about what she does and does not deserve, what she can and can’t have. The fact of him is enough for that.

But she’s not jealous of Jaime, she’s jealous of Cersei, and the fact of Cersei undoes her.

* * *

He’s not happy when he hears about the raven.

She tells him in the morning, when they’re getting dressed. It’s a lengthy process, though not as much as it used to be. After the first two weeks of sharing a room, Brienne lost her patience with watching Jaime try to hop into his pants every morning and went to ask one of the Wildling women for a favor. That evening she presented him with a bundle of shirts, breeches, and jackets that have all had their tangled ties removed and replaced with loops, large flat buttons, and even a few cunning little brass hooks that he can snag on eyelets.

“So you don’t have to spend half an hour wrestling with a piece of string,” she’d said casually, pretending to polish Oathkeeper while watching him receive the gift out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure how he’d take it—even after everything, Jaime Lannister’s pride remains a force to be reckoned with—but to her mild and pleasant surprise, he didn’t take offense to the implication that he needed help dressing himself. In fact, he had thanked her quietly, his voice warm like glowing embers, and smiled at her so sweetly she’d nearly dropped the sword.

Then suddenly he pivoted. “You know, these will also be very easy to take off,” he’d said after examining the alterations, and Brienne had looked down at her blade and blushed and sworn to herself she wasn’t going to rise to that pathetic bait.

She ended up rising to it more than once, and in a couple different positions. Jaime looked very pleased with himself as he buttoned himself into his breeches the following morning.

But today, this morning, he doesn’t look pleased. He doesn’t look like anything because he’s got his back to her, pulling the shirt over one shoulder and then the other as she dully recites the raven’s news. His head is down and he moves slowly, like a man half-awake, no reaction when he learns that his sister’s armies are frozen in, that his home is under siege and may starve in the months to come, that his sister herself is—

He does react to that, to Cersei’s name. Brienne considers not telling him, the jealousy screams at her not to, but she can’t, she can’t do that to him. All it takes is a moment of imagining the look on his face if he ever learned she had kept that information from him and any resolve she has to stand between him and news of Cersei crumbles. Love and jealousy may be fighting within her but honor overcomes them both.

When she tells him that Cersei is in good health, he stiffens, his head coming up and his hand stilling where it was buttoning his breeches on. She hesitates, waiting for him to speak, to turn around, to do something more—but he just stands there, rigid, and so she says the second part, that Cersei is apparently growing thinner in the scarcity of winter. She’s done the math in her own head and she can see him doing it too, his shoulders hunching slightly as he counts back and then his breath coming out in a sudden huff, like he’s absorbed a punch.

Brienne wonders if he thinks she’s enjoying this, pointedly delivering the news that his sister was either a liar or a madwoman and either way his children are all still dead with no new life on the way to be one more chance at redemption. She wonders if he’s going to go ask someone else, maybe Davos since Tyrion is off on the back of a dragon, to find out if that was actually the word from the capital or if she’s embellished and emphasized the most hurtful inference. She wonders if Jaime thinks she’s doing it on purpose.

She wonders if she is.

“Jaime—” she says into the silence, but even before the word is out of her mouth he’s moving, grabbing his cloak from the chair where he flung it last night and opening the door with his good hand. He strides out into the hall without looking at her once, without answering her, without closing the door behind him. In the blink of an eye he’s down the stairs and gone in the depths of the castle.

Brienne sits heavily back on her bed. Her heart is both heavy and burning, a lump of molten lead dripping hellfire into her stomach.

_He will always choose her over me._

* * *

They’ve never talked about Cersei, not really. Brienne mentioned her once or twice the first morning they woke up together, not by name, and Jaime had either ignored or shut down the reference immediately. It’s been a month since then, and they’ve talked about everything: their childhoods, their favorite foods, their opinion on greatswords versus rapiers, their preferences for riding and swimming and eating and fucking. They’ve even shared their fears, the deep ones that knights are not supposed to have, and they’ve shared the secret things they tell themselves to keep those fears at bay. They’ve gone soul-to-soul and come out entwined in each other, stronger because of it.

Except they haven’t talked about Cersei.

At first Brienne told herself it was out of respect. After all, she had no illusions about how deep Jaime’s relationship with Cersei ran. She knew from the first moment they met that all the rumors about him and his sister were true, she’d heard him say it without a hint of shame. She knew they were lovers, that Jaime was the father of his sister’s children. She knew that Jaime cared for nothing in the world the way he cared for Cersei, and she knew that in her own way, Cersei cared just as much for him.

And especially after that terrible moment alone with Cersei at Joffrey’s wedding, she knew that there was something between the twins that nobody on the outside could really reach. Whether it was in the blood or in the brain, spun by whispered words or sprouted from a seed in their shared womb, they were tied together, and where one went, a part of the other followed. And so Brienne had decided that they would avoid the topic of Cersei out of respect for that connection and that history, no matter how warped and unnatural it might be, because it was part of who Jaime was and she wanted him whole, not carved into chunks like a roast goose.

Except that wasn’t why, and she knew it, and over the course of a month it became harder to deny, because jealousy does not lie.

Cersei was evil, petty, cruel, selfish, a lunatic whose trauma and deep-seated pain had mixed with such raw ambition as to react alchemically and produce a lioness sporting the tail of a scorpion, venom dripping from her barb and blood smeared across her claws. She was a tragedy and a martyr and a villain and a scourge, abomination of greed and rage and hurt, and Brienne’s honor and morality condemned her unequivocally.

But Jaime had loved her first and loved her still, and the jealousy burned in Brienne until Cersei was the only person she had ever truly come to hate.

* * *

Brienne is in a bad mood.

Lady Sansa notices but says nothing, allowing Brienne to brood and scowl over her shoulder as she discusses rationing with Jon and meets with a number of smallfolk. Some of them actually look a bit alarmed at the giant woman in full armor whose glare could melt stone, but Sansa’s calm smile eventually puts them at ease. Brienne couldn’t care less about the smallfolk right now, she’s too busy being preemptively mad at Jaime.

_He knows what she is, he knows she’s a murdering, conniving, vicious little viper who sucks the life out of everyone around her, and he’s still pining over her._

_What kind of idiot would love her in the first place? Is he really so stupid and shallow, that he would let her beauty and her cunning trick him into bed? And she’s his_ sister _, his twin, how sick does a man have to be?_

 _But of course, she’s so beautiful and intoxicating and alluring that he can’t help himself, he_ has _to love her, that fucker, and anyway why shouldn’t he, if he’s lucky enough to be with the most beautiful woman in the world?_

_It will always be her, she’ll always get everything first and all she wants because she’s pretty and dainty and knows how to be a woman. I let myself want a person, just once, only once, and he can’t let go of her. It’s not fair._

_This is why loving is for fools._

Her thoughts go on like that, round and round, hating Jaime, hating Cersei, all of it a wonderfully convenient way to hate herself.

Because it’s really her fault, isn’t it, that she’s not enough for Jaime. She knows that his connection to Cersei is the stuff of nightmares, abusive and wracked with grief and codependent to the point of self-delusion, and she knows that he struggles with it constantly, even if he keeps it quiet around her. But if she were enough—prettier, smaller, quieter, softer, better—he would be cured. He would be free, free to love her with his whole heart and not with what’s left, what his sister doesn’t keep locked in her chest. He wouldn’t be hiding somewhere in the castle, obsessing over Cersei, and she wouldn’t be standing her obsessing over him.

It’s all her fault.

By suppertime, Brienne’s bad mood has gone murderous, and she really wishes her lady would hurry up and retire for the night so she can go out to the training yard and smash the shit out of some sparring dummies. Lady Sansa spares her the indignity of asking what’s wrong, but she lays her hand gently on Brienne’s arm as they go down to supper, and when Brienne not-so-subtly scans the crowded main hall for the absent flicker of firelight on sculpted gold, Sansa purses his lips.

“You shouldn’t let him upset you,” she says. It takes a second before Brienne realizes her lady is talking to her, since her gray eyes stayed trained on the mutton pie in front of her.

“I’m not upset, my lady.” The sulkiness in her voice says otherwise. Sansa shrugs and takes a bite of pie. They’re sitting at the far end of the high table, giving Jon space to mope over his Dragon Queen and Arya room to smirk and whisper with the Baratheon boy. The sounds of cheerful chewing and chatter echo through the hall and grates against Brienne. She wants to be outside, in the cold and dark, where it’s easier to feel sorry for herself. 

“If he hurts you, I’ll have his head put on a spike.”

Brienne starts a little, just because—well, her lady is icy and strong, but never bloodthirsty. Not like that.

“He’s not—it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I don’t think he will,” Sansa says, still not looking up at Brienne. “I think if he had a choice, he would never do anything to cause you pain, not the way he looks at you. But I’ve seen them, Brienne.”

Brienne shivers as her lady finally lifts her head and fixes those piercing grey eyes on her. A real wolf does not need to bare its fangs.

“I saw them when I was a little girl, and I saw them after you brought him back to King’s Landing. When she gets her claws in you, they go very deep, and I—I was only with her three years but I still feel them sometimes, drawing blood.”

Sansa’s voices wavers slightly but her eyes do not. Brienne can’t look away, hit once more by just how hard her lady has had to fight to be standing here in one piece today.

“He’s been with her since before they were born. She uses him the way she uses wine, to escape, to make her stronger, to do her dirty work in a pinch. And he doesn’t seem to know there’s any other way.”

Brienne swallows. Sansa is right, though that doesn’t make it any easier. Her lady leans towards her, red hair glowing in the candlelight, making her look startlingly like her mother.

“Sometimes loving people makes us forget how much of ourselves belongs only to us,” Sansa whispers. “But that’s what I see when I look at you, Brienne. A person who has refused to be owned by anyone else, and uses her freedom to fight for those who can’t. You are more than him, you are more than _me_. Remember that.”

There’s an urgency in Sansa’s voice as she speaks these last two words, and it cuts through Brienne like Valyrian steel. She looks at her lady, who has spent her life being promised and traded and taunted like an exotic bird in a fancy cage, who stood tall as the Northern fir trees around her when Brienne knelt in the snow and offered her sword in service. Sansa stares back with eyes that are wise beyond their years, and Brienne flinches when she suddenly feels a cold, delicate hand grab at her wrist.

“Jaime Lannister is not your story, any more than Joffrey or Ramsay or even my family are mine.” Slim fingers tighten over a hammering pulse. “We are all we have, Ser Brienne. We are what we choose to do, every day, over the course of a life. And not just for the ones we love.”

“My lady—” Brienne starts, but doesn’t know what comes next, so she falls silent. All the talk and the clinking of forks and plates have fallen away, the room may as well be empty, as she looks at Lady Sansa and just for a moment sees herself through those strong wolf’s eyes.

* * *

Brienne does end up going out to the yard, though the vitriol and bubbling resentment are not what draws her. Instead, after Lady Sansa has bidden her good night, she wanders down past huddles of sleepy people and dying fires and finds her way out into the snow, which is falling gently right now, no blizzard tonight. Out of her armor but wearing her heavy furred cloak, she walks for a little while before finding a smooth, empty patch of ground at the foot of a tower. She stamps down the fluffy white dusting on the ground, takes off her cloak and set it aside neatly folded, and then begins to drill with her own moon-shadow, just like she did when she was a girl.

It feels so good, like the alleviation of an ache she didn’t notice until it was gone. Oathkeeper is a part of her, no separate steel, just another stretch of her own bone and sinew as she swings it, and her feet are sure even on slippery ground, and her head is up with her weight in her toes, just like she was taught, and she belongs to herself.

Lady Sansa’s words ring in her head, cool and clear as silver bells. _Remember that, remember that, remember that_ , as she looked at Brienne the way Brienne had always imagined being looked at, like she was a great knight, a defender, a bulwark between the innocent and the bringers of pain.

 _Because that’s what I want, that’s what I wanted,_ she remembers as her sword slices through purple shadows. That’s why she spent so long wrestling with jealousy and injured feelings, why she had to learn to overcome them rather than trying to appease them. Because in the end, no matter how much it hurt not to be pretty or petite or as much of a girl as she should be, Brienne had never once let that convince her to back down from her dreams or her fate. It had never even been an option.

_I never wanted a man or dreamed of a man, not even Renly, not like that, I wanted his love but I didn’t want to be his queen, I wanted to be his shield. I wanted to do my work, the thing I am good at, for the people who need me._

Parry, cross, touch—retreat, lunge, parry—

_I love the strength of my body, I love the sureness of my reach, I love more than anything a world in which people take care of each other and keep their vows and protect those who need it most. I love fighting for that world._

_I love Jaime too, but if he chose Cersei all over again and left me, I would still belong to myself. My pain would be mine, my grief would be mine, and my love, broken and battered, would be mine. I am not my own second choice, no matter who else's I may be._

_Cersei cannot steal me away from me._

“Watch out, he’s bluffing.”

It’s embarrassing, but she’s so in her own rhythm that she really doesn’t hear him coming up behind her and so when he speaks she makes a kind of loud squeak and nearly drops her sword.

Jaime’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything. She adjusts her gloves, blushing, glancing back and forth between his face and the ground.

“Ser Jaime.”

“Ser Brienne.”

What else to say? They stand there, snowflakes in both their hair, mud on their boots. Jaime looks tired, like he hasn’t slept in days, which she knows isn’t true because she sleeps next to him but does still make her stomach tighten slightly. He seems to be hiding in his cloak, bent over slightly like an old man.

Brienne’s body is still thrumming with the exertion of her drills, and she doesn’t want her muscles to tighten back up in the cold, so with no further conversation forthcoming she starts again, fighting her own shadow. It’s easy to forget he’s there, especially when she really tries to lose herself in the twist of her elbow and the balance of her wrist, categorizing each movement like a picky master of arms. That’s how she got good, after all.

“This is where it happened,” he says quietly, and she only pauses for a moment before returning to the drills.

“Where what happened?” she asks, only slightly out of breath. She ups the pace, jabbing and slicing with elite precision.

“Where I pushed him.”

She fights through it, even though her body screams for her to stop and turn to him, see what his face and eyes look like.

“He fell right here. I checked, after I heard him hit the ground. He looked like a broken toy.”

She doesn’t stop to look, she can’t, so instead her brain conjures up a picture of the ground right beneath her feet and the body of a young boy, no more than ten, his legs splayed at bizarre angles and blood rushing from his head, eyes only whites as he faints—and then up above, a face looking down at his handiwork, cool and resolute and beautiful, soft blonde hair, a razor-sharp jaw, the face of a man willing to push his own limits until he can prove they don’t really exist.

“She didn’t even have to ask,” he says, and she can almost hear him shaking his head. “Just the look in her eyes, I knew what she wanted. And I did it. For her.”

“What do you want me to say, ser?” Brienne grunts, switching her feet. A pause, then she hears him walking closer, frost and snow crunching.

“I suppose I want you to tell me to leave.”

This time she does stop.

She can’t look at him, not yet, so she stares at the huge stones that sit at the foot of the tower. They must have taken six men to lift. Gods, she could use some good heavy rocks to throw around right now.

“Where would you go?” she asks. He sighs, his cloak rustling.

“I suppose I would head towards King’s Landing, though we both know I wouldn’t make it.” His voice is low but conversational, like they’re talking about the weather. “I could go further North, to the Wall. Tyrion says it’s quite a thing to piss over the edge. That’s about the best use for a sack of shit like me right now.”

It’s the coarseness of the language that finally makes her turn. Jaime is many things but he’s definitely a snob, and when he swears he does it elegantly, not like a pig farmer from Ashemark.

She looks him up and down, sees the emptiness in his eyes, how heavy his shoulders seem to sit on his back. She glances at his right side and realizes with a jolt that he’s not wearing the golden hand. She can’t imagine why not, he’s still wary about being seen in public without it.

“Why would I tell you to leave?”

He refuses to meet her eyes. “Because you should.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

“You know the real answer.”

“I assure you, ser, I do not.”

“You’re in love with Cersei.”

_Oh, so it’s going to be like this, then._

He does look up then, right into her eyes, seeing how she responds to the challenge. Brienne takes a deep breath.

“What makes you say such a thing, Ser Jaime?”

“Because if you love me, you love her. I am all the things she has ever wanted, all the tasks and the risks and the betrayals. Her will has worked through me, and I’ve let it, I’ve served it like a septon serves the Seven. So as hateful as you find her, remember who made her hate possible.”

Jaime’s shoulders heave as he looks at her, his eyes burning. A memory flashes through her mind: his face, caked in filth, tilted upwards as she wrenched his hair back, his voice soft as he tells her, _we don’t choose who we love._

“What of the works you have done without her bidding?” Brienne asks, taking a step towards him. “What of the man I marched through the wilderness for weeks on end, who gave me his sword, who fought the dead at my side a month ago?”

“That was still her. Everything is her.”

“Strange, I could swear it was a man who fucked me against the wall just last—”

“Stop it.” He sounds furious all of a sudden, and she’s glad. Anything is better than his morose self-hatred.

“She can’t be all of you, Jaime.”

“Yes she can. She always has been.”

“She’s a tyrant who—”

“She was a beautiful girl who was smarter than everyone else and they sold her like a broodmare! She’s strong and brilliant and brave and she’s always needed me, and I have always been there for her, and that’s it, that’s me. I have lived to give to Cersei.”

“Were you giving to Cersei when you killed the Mad King?”

“Well, he never lived to do anything with that wildfire, did he, and in the end she found some use for it, so yes, perhaps I was!”

Her heart jumps. Jaime’s face is twisted in rage, though it’s not directed at her. His good hand flexes, like he wishes he could wrap it around the hilt of a sword.

“Do you still love her?”

Given the conversation they’re having, it seems like an obvious and stupid and even a childish question. But Brienne is tired of the games, of talking in circles and upside-down, and she’s already battered away at herself so much today she can’t take much more of it now with Jaime.

His eyes are on hers still, which surprises her. She would expect him to look away. They gaze at each other through the falling snow, Winterfell looming over them with the weight of history.

And then something shifts and the tension drains out of him, and he looks so sad.

“I…have to love her,” he says finally. Her stomach twists.

“Why?”

“Because—because I don’t know how not to.”

“You didn’t know how to fight with one hand.”

“I still don’t.”

“You’re learning.”

“There are different kinds of love, Brienne.”

“Are there?”

“You wouldn’t know. But some love can be hateful. It can make you want to die. It can crush the world around you.”

“That doesn’t sound like love.”

“Then what is it!”

The desperation in his voice is sudden and jarring and it hits Brienne like a physical blow. Jaime’s hands are reaching for her suddenly, the one he has and the one he doesn’t, stretching out like a beggar asking for alms. She wants to reach out and pull him in, help him, but she doesn’t know if she has what he needs and what damage it will do if she only pretends.

“You’re a good man,” she whispers. He shakes his head helplessly, arms still wide and searching.

“I’m _not_ , Brienne, I can’t be, not after the choices I’ve made.”

“You made them for her.”

“But I still made them. I killed, I crippled, I betrayed, again and again, and I did it for love, and love is poison but you’re not, you’re everything good, so how can I be here, how can I let myself stay and poison you, Brienne, tell me to leave, just get me fucking out of here so I can go die with her like I’m supposed to—”

He has to stop talking then because she pushes his face into her shoulder as she wraps her arms around him, cradles his head, presses her own mouth to his ear. Jaime shakes in her embrace, not crying, just shaking like he might fly apart. Brienne holds him, out there alone under the Broken Tower, and she remembers Sansa’s words.

_When she gets her claws in you, they go very deep…and he doesn’t seem to know there’s any other way._

“I could leave,” she says into the curve of his neck. He stiffens, catches his breath, tightens his arms around her.

“What? No, why, you can’t—”

“If I wanted to. If I had to. I could leave you.” She strokes his hair while she speaks, trying to soothe him. “Love is much newer to me than it is to you, but I know that if I had to leave, to protect myself or my lady or innocent people, then I could.”

He’s still clinging to her, still rigid. She kisses his ear.

“I don’t need you, Jaime, but I choose you. I choose to stay and have this, have you. Nobody’s forcing me. Nobody has taken away the parts of me that don’t belong to you. I could not love as a hostage.”

“…it’s too late,” he whispers, and he sounds impossibly young. “I’ve gone too far for her. And I still…I want to protect her. I want to save her, Brienne, I want to help her, I’m sick.”

“It’s okay,” she tells him, even if it’s not.

“I don’t think of her in bed,” he says with sudden ferocity, and he’s pulling back, looking her in the eye, determined. “I never think of her when I’m touching you. I was terrified that I would, I hated myself for it before it happened, but when I’m with you it feels like—like everything could be new.”

“Oh Jaime,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She kisses him, their lips both dry and chapped, and he rests his head on her forehead, breathing hard.

“She always said that nothing mattered but us. Just us. Only us.” His stump comes up, presses gently against her cheek. She doesn’t flinch because she never has.

“Do I matter?” she whispers, and he flinches.

“ _Yes,”_ he says, his voice breaking on the word, and he kisses her again, hard, all teeth and insistent tongue. She kisses back but calms the pace, pressing her lips gently against his until he quiets.

“So maybe other things can too,” she says softly.

“But—”

“Listen to me, Jaime.” She frames his face in her hands, his cheeks warm, his eyes wide. “The past is set. All of it. If you spend the rest of your life a slave to the choices you have already made, then you dishonor not only yourself but Bran, and your brother, and all the people who have suffered because of mistakes you regret.”

“I have no honor left to lose.”

“For Gods’ sake, honor is not a purse that can be emptied or a glass that can be shattered! It’s a muscle, it’s part of you, but you have to use it to make it strong!”

Jaime looks at her in a way he never has before, not even here, and she thinks maybe she can reach him, maybe this time. “Life and love and honor are not gifts, Jaime, they are responsibilities. That’s why I could leave you if I had to, and why I don’t want you to leave me when you don’t have to. Don’t sacrifice yourself to guilt, that’s easy, that’s unworthy of a knight.”

He’s crying.

“Stay here and keep choosing, every day, to be the man I know you are. That’s how you heal, Jaime, that’s how you get better. We can do it together.”

It’s like that night weeks ago, when he knelt before her and told her it wasn’t her job to go through the world alone, except this time she’s the one standing firm on the ground, watching him struggle to grab on to something in her words and pull himself up off the edge of a cliff. She can’t do it for him, he has to make the climb himself. But oh, she wants so badly to help.

“I don’t have to go back,” he says, hoarse with tears. She nods. “I can stay? With you?”

“Always. If that’s what you want.”

“I do. I—” He pauses, gulps. “I can’t promise that—sometimes it’s worse, sometimes it’s like I can hear her voice in my head, that’s when I’m weak.”

“If you want my help, you have it.”

He looks her in the eye and smiles weak and watery. She raises a hand to brush the tears away and he catches it, kissing her knuckles.

“You are the most extraordinary person I have ever met, Ser Brienne. And I have met a great many people.”

Even now, she blushes.

_Jealousy is for people who are scared of what they might lose. I have known loss, I have known fear, but I know him too. And just as I belong to myself, we belong to each other._

_Let come what may._


	4. Ninety-Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title for this chapter: A Quest for Dough,
> 
> I fear I may begin hitting all the J/B fic trope bingo squares. I'm sorry, I know it's very very very high on fluff and domestic tranquility and sexy times and very very very low on like intrigue and action and like PLOT.
> 
> But as I've said before, it's my sandbox and I'll eat the sand if I want to.
> 
> (Also, apologies to any bakers/farmers/military tacticians I insulted with my ignorance and my tendency to make shit up rather that put in the time and effort to pin down research. You're all better and smarter than me. Relieve your anger by writing nice long reviews that tell me what a dumb hoor I am and which lines you liked best.)

**94 Days**

* * *

One morning, Jaime wakes up and realizes he’s happy.

The morning he has this revelation begins unremarkably, same as most other mornings for the last three months. He comes to from a dense, dreamless sleep, and the first thing he registers is the warmth of Brienne on his right side. They go to sleep all different ways _(her holding him, him holding her, tangled up together like puppies in a basket)_ but they’re always touching when they wake up. This morning she’s got one leg slung over his thighs, head on his shoulder, arms wrapped around his stump the way a child might clutch a doll in their cradle.

She’s also snoring in his ear, which is delightful. A rhythmic buzz with a slight honk, it makes him smile even as he blinks the sleep away. He finds her snoring both hilarious and adorable, even though she flatly refuses to believe she does it _(which is itself more adorable)._ Once, at dinner, she cornered Podrick and demanded to know if she snored when they had been out on the road. The look on Pod’s face nearly broke Jaime’s heart, though it didn’t stop him from threatening the squire with a duel if he lied to his knight about this. Tyrion took pity on the poor boy and intervened with a long-winded story about a whore he’d met once who snored out of a most peculiar part of her body, and between Brienne’s disgust with all men and Jaime’s fascination with the mechanics involved, Podrick was able to duck away from the table and go find safety.

She does snore, though, and every morning Jaime wakes up to it he loves her a little bit more.

The light coming in through the window tells him it’s relatively early still, no rush to leave the warmth of the bed or the comfort of Brienne’s touch. He turns his head slightly to look at her, and he really can’t help smiling at the sight. Her mouth is slightly open and there’s a spot of dried drool on his shoulder, which she’ll be embarrassed about if he decides to point it out. Even though she cut her hair just the other day, it’s still thick enough to stand on end in the mornings, a glossy white-blonde halo that makes her look ten years younger. In sleep, her perpetual frown disappears and she looks—well, not peaceful, but not troubled. Like someone who doesn’t spend every day fighting.

Although right now she actually doesn’t, a state of affairs which has turned out to be far more pleasant and far less boring than either of them might have anticipated.

* * *

As it becomes clearer and clearer that winter isn’t immediately going away, the Northern and Eastern armies have had to reconfigure themselves to new necessities, all of which are radically different than three months ago when every moment was spent either preparing for the Long Night or fighting the hollow terror and anxiety that came from preparing for the Long Night. Armies and allies gathered together for war suddenly find themselves facing a forced peace, winter’s grip squeezing them all with undiscerning brutality, and now soldiers turn to farmers in search of protection.

First of all, everyone has to move. Winterfell was bursting at the seams before the Long Night, and even after all the casualties they sustained, the Great Keep cannot accommodate so many people for as long as this winter may last. The smallfolk whose homes are near enough to travel to have made their way back through the snow, though a large number have taken up residence in the keep, stranded as they are in the worsening weather. The Wildlings have set up camps all around the castle, scoffing at “southern softies” who need to hide inside for warmth. A number of Unsullied remain in the castle as well, though because of the overcrowding most of them are quartered in a number of Northern holdfasts, along with the Dothraki and their horses. The Dragon Queen moves restlessly between these havens, flying her dragons back and forth across the winter landscape, showing her face among her troops and lieutenants as often as she can. These are Eastern fighters stuck far from home in the most hostile of conditions, and though Danaerys may be far from perfect, she cares deeply for her people, and works hard to make sure they are at least surviving and hopefully not miserable.

Tyrion is often with her, though he always returns to Winterfell eventually, bitching and moaning about his frozen fingers and the calluses that dragon scales can wear into a person’s thighs. Jaime is always glad to see his brother, but the truth is he’s usually so busy he doesn’t notice Tyrion is gone until he’s come back again. That’s how demanding life is at Winterfell, a kind of urgent regularity that Jaime has never experienced in his life. Fighters and builders are out of their element, but the needs of the many cannot wait for the uncertainties of the few. Now instead of forging dragonglass weapons, the smiths help sow vegetables, winter crops outside in fleece-covered garden patches and root vegetables in the fertile soil beneath the castle where they can soak up heat from the natural hot springs. Instead of building trebuchets, soldiers and engineers build pens and lean-tos for goats and sheep and chickens, while the farmers do whatever they have to do to start their animals breeding out of season. Instead of huddling in crypts, women and children throw their backs into the labors right alongside everyone else, as Northerners have always done when the frost comes down from beyond the Wall.

Jaime, heir apparent to Casterly Rock and son of the great Tywin Lannister, can’t begin to fathom how all these people know how to do all these things. It embarrasses him to be so clueless about the most basic of survival tasks, a highborn brat who never once needed to grow his own food or sew his own clothes. But the blessing of their strange circumstances is that no one has time to stand around and sneer at the helpless Kingslayer. Everyone is working double-duty, learning unfamiliar skills, lending their bodies to someone else’s initiative. Even Lady Sansa has become a strange mix of wartime and peacetime ruler, spending as many hours resolving disputes over timber and eggs as she does discussing military strategy and the springtime plan of attack with Jon Snow, the Dragon Queen, and their host of advisors.

Which now includes Jaime.

It may be one of the few things he actually feels equipped to offer, but it’s still bizarre to stand there in the bleak rooms of Winterfell and present his military opinions to Northerners and Targaryens, like some kind of strange dream or pantomime. Every once in a while he gets flashes of the last time he was here _(Robert’s booming laugh, Joffrey taunting his brother and sister, Cersei’s nails digging into his arm as she drags him up to a tower)_ but mostly he tries to brush it off and accept the new reality. It’s easiest on the days Lady Sansa is present, because it means Brienne is also there, tall and quiet but catching his eye when he needs her, a solid reminder of everything that’s lead him to this strange and illogical place.

Jaime also takes comfort in the knowledge that he’s actually making a difference, and that the rest of them know it too. Most of them don’t seem to like him much—which is fine, he doesn’t like them either—but with Tyrion’s relentless lobbying and a few genuinely good ideas, they’ve begrudgingly started to listen. After all, they may have no way of knowing when the thaw will come, but nobody wants to be caught unawares by Cersei when it does, and whether they like it or not he knows Cersei better than any of them. So he does his job, offering advice on the countless possibilities and scenarios they spin out, sitting beside Jon Snow and Ser Davos to sketch out troop movements and the terrain around King’s Landing and lists of maneuvers, even though his own automatic reaction to the idea of fighting against his sister is a cross between nausea, anger, and bone-deep pain.

On days that the war council doesn’t meet, he usually makes himself useful one of two ways: the training yard or the kitchens. In the kitchens, he finds himself surprisingly canny, quickly learning to knead dough with his stump and using it to brace vegetables while he chops them. Even more surprising, he enjoys the atmosphere, the chatter of women and a few young boys, the rich smells, the warmth from the cooking fires. One woman in particular, Hanna, seems to have taken a liking to him. She’s about sixty years old, built like a boulder and married to a boisterous Northern farmer who brought seventeen sheep with him to Winterfell. She doesn’t smile or even speak much, but for some reason the time passes quickly in her presence. She doesn’t seem to mind him working beside her in enjoyable silence, and sometimes they exchange a few words. Once he made her laugh, or at least he thinks he did _(it might have been a sneeze)_. Jaime isn’t sure, since he hasn’t really done it since he was about seventeen, but this might be what having a friend is like.

The yard is where he has the most fun, though with everyone running around so much it’s rare he gets to spend any real time there. He may not have his right hand anymore but he was taught for years by the greatest swordmasters money could buy and most of the younger fighters who want to train in their time away from work don’t really know much about the Kingslayer and don’t mind listening to him, not when they clearly get better under his instruction. Podrick tries to be there whenever Jaime is, doggedly studying and sparring, just as Brienne told him he must.

Speaking of Brienne, Jaime has also started teaching three girls who showed up one by one and demanded training swords, all of them going straight to him, the first words out of their mouths “Ser Brienne of Tarth." When he tells Brienne, she blushes so hard he thinks her head might explode. For some reason she refuses to come down and meet the girls, though occasionally he catches her watching them from the battlements, a rare moment for herself when she’s not beside Lady Sansa or lending her incredible strength to one menial task or another. He wonders what she sees when she looks at them.

So the days have passed, busy and bulky and endlessly cold but strangely satisfying, far more so than a day of dull marching or sitting around an army camp. Jaime sleeps heavy and rises early, always something new and pressing to be done. His body aches at the end of each day, a good, clean, earned soreness that sometimes makes him smile for no reason. He talks to people over dinner, Podrick and Davos and Tyrion and Brienne, and others he had never dreamt of sharing conversation with, like Lord Varys or the commander of the Unsullied or even a couple of the less aggressive Wildings. He laughs and listens and even sings on nights they’re allowed to dip into the wine rations, and then at the end of the evening he retires to his and Brienne’s chambers and they do it all again with only each other, talking and listening and sometimes laughing, opening that final private stitch of self to the one whom it belongs to, and once they’ve woven each other through another day they put hands and mouths to flesh and make the person they love feel good until sleep claims them.

Dawn comes all too soon.

* * *

The soft morning light seems to be getting dimmer, not brighter. Jaime squints and makes out wisps of shadow dancing silently past the window. Snow, then. How much remains to be seen, but it’s been almost a week since their last blizzard and after three months Jaime knows that long without a storm means they’re overdue. He lies there, enjoying everything about this moment: the cozy warmth of the bed, the smell of burnt-out embers, the invisible weight of the snowflakes falling outside, and most of all the feeling of Brienne next to him, vulnerable and soft, her naked body strong even in slumber.

In fact, that’s a whole other thing to enjoy, the memory of last night. She’d looked at him with dark eyes and his breath had caught, and before long he was naked on the bed and she was still wearing her trousers when she whispered to him to put his hands on the headboard and not remove them, for anything, and he’d obeyed, and then she’d driven him insane for the next hour, her mouth and her hands and her bare skin everywhere, except where he wanted it most, where she had ground down on him through her pants, over and over, and after all the torture when he’d finally lost his damn mind and flipped her backwards and torn her breeches off and come in maybe six or seven thrusts, she’d petted his sweaty hair and said that maybe she should tie him up next time if he can’t even follow a simple command, and if he’d been fifteen years younger those words alone might have gotten him ready to go again—

And now his erection is poking a sleeping Brienne in the leg. Good morning, indeed.

Jaime shifts, enjoying the friction, trying to decide if he wants to try for a sleepy shag or not. Once upon a time, he would have sworn up and down that Brienne of Tarth was not the kind of person to put up with time-wasting in the early morning, not when there was work to be done and honor to uphold. But as it turns out, though Brienne wakes as quickly as any good soldier, the longer they share a bed the more she seems to enjoy lying in whenever they get a chance. Sometimes they talk quietly, sometimes they make love, but most often they just enjoy the feeling of being close together in a warm bed, comfortable silence nestled over them like an extra woolen blanket.

He loves her in these morning moments, loves how soft and pliable she is, how easily she receives his touch and his affection. The Brienne of daylight and nighttime is straight and tall and hard, her hair smoothed back and her sword hand ready on Oathkeeper’s hilt, slow to smile and dutiful above all else. But in the morning, here with him, she’s warm and sleepy and cuddly, her beautiful long fingers playing unselfconsciously with his chest hair, her head heavy on his shoulder. She giggles when he says something purposefully asinine and she nuzzles the sensitive parts of his ear and sometimes she hums quietly to him, or maybe to herself, so unguarded and relaxed that it ceases to matter. Her hair is mussed and fluffy and smells like clean cotton, which he knows because she doesn’t swat him away when he presses his nose right up against her skull and inhales her like a wine bouquet.

It’s the side of her only he gets to see, and he guards it in the deepest part of his heart.

This particular morning, he decides to be a gentleman and not wake her just for the sake of a quick fuck. But then, even as he sighs and resigns himself to lingering frustration, he hears her cough lightly and the snores cease as she stirs, roused by his own wakefulness or by a dream or simply by the light peeping through the window. She shifts, feeling out her surroundings, her warm skin sliding over his. It does absolutely nothing for his plan to be a gentleman.

Jaime doesn’t move yet though. He likes watching her wake up, those big blue eyes fluttering, scrunching closed again, finally opening halfway, her fingers flexing against the side of his forearm. But he inhales sharply when her leg tightens around his thighs and as it does it rides up a bit and rubs against him, right there. She stills momentarily, her field instincts kicking in, but he can tell the moment her sleepy brain processes the situation, because she makes a gentle humming noise and her thigh resumes its leisurely upwards motion, pressing against his cock just firm enough to make him moan quietly in the back of his throat, and she snorts and smiles their eyes meet.

It feels like everything happens in one long, luxurious motion, Brienne melting back onto the bed as Jaime drifts forward and on top of her, like foam being pulled towards shore on a lazy current. They kiss so lightly it’s barely a kiss, lips brushing, mouths open, eyes closing in long sleepy blinks, and when Jaime’s hand brushes over her hip and in between her legs she sighs with quiet satisfaction, thighs parting languidly to give him room and her thumb running slowly back and forth across a tender spot beneath his ear.

They don’t speak, mostly because they don’t really have to, not for this, not by now. The snow outside muffles any other noise, the cry of birds or the voices of people moving through the castle. Time seems to stop, just this, just them, just here.

He doesn’t work her long, just until she catches her breath and presses her fingers oh-so-gently to the side of his neck, and he hitches briefly up on his elbow and reaches down to take hold of himself and then _yes_ , she’s so warm and soft and wet, no resistance anywhere, and he just goes in and in until he can’t go any further and they’re pressed together, bodies molding to each other. He only takes a second to savor that total acceptance, that most complete contact, before he starts to move, his hips rocking slow and steady but hard, deep as he can go, as he rests his head beside hers on the pillow and nuzzles her hair. She loops her arms around his neck and sighs again, her knees bending as she slides her legs up and over his until they’re braided together, locked in place, the same rhythm tense and gliding through them both.

Jaime doesn’t really believe in the Gods which means he doesn’t really believe in heaven, but if it exists, let it be this, a room silent save for the rustling of linen and deep even breaths, everything around him warm and soft, the smell of clean cotton in his nose and the woman he loves beyond words underneath him, loving him back, letting him make her feel good, even as the wonderful hot tension twists slowly tighter in his stomach.

It doesn’t last forever but it sort of feels like it does, no end and no beginning to all this, and when the pressure is finally at the point of no return and Jaime hears her breathing speed up right along with his, it’s with a funny slowness, like moving through water, that he reaches down between them and moves his fingers over her, just the way she likes it. She comes at that same dreamy pace, one quiet moan pouring out of her as she stretches taut beneath him and her head lolls back, and then he’s moving again, before she’s even done, her voice rising to a whimper, and his climax rises like a wave and floods through him, out of him, his toes curling and his chest heaving. When it’s finally done he lets himself go, his full weight on top of her, because she’s strong enough to take it and she _wants_ it, pulling him closer with arms around his shoulders. The air is cold but her breath is warm, her heartbeat is steady against his, and he never wants to move.

That’s when Jaime realizes he’s happy.

And he’s not really prepared to deal with it.

* * *

In Jaime’s experience, when things are going right for him that means they’re generally going pretty fucking poorly for most other people. He’s spent a lot of years not caring about that, but in light of his recent attempt to try and be a better person for Brienne’s sake (and maybe even his own), he forces himself to try and figure out if that’s happening right now, and if it is, how he can make it—not.

Except it already seems to be not. His relationship with Brienne isn’t hurting anyone (except that giant fucking Wildling and possibly Cersei, but he’s been working hard on avoiding thoughts of one and fighting with the other). He spends his time doing things that serve either to support or protect his fellow humans. None of this is possible only because a large army is dying in multitudes for his family honor or whatever.

No matter how Jaime looks at it, nothing he does seems to be causing any suffering or chaos. It’s freaking him out a little, if he’s honest.

After all, the last time he wasn’t doing something that the world quite clearly considered _wrong_ was when he was—thirteen? Twelve? When had Cersei touched him for the first time? When had he first turned a blind eye to some cruelty she inflicted on Tyrion, knowing that in exchange he would be rewarded with something sinful and secret? When had he first started trading away his honor for his sister’s scent on his skin? And even later, after the Mad King, after her wedding to Robert, after the loss of his hand and the earthquake that Brienne had caused inside of him, he still sacrificed the expendable smallfolk and soldiers for his own agenda. Just because he wasn’t there to see them lose important things or suffer through the pain he was spared didn’t mean it wasn’t his doing, his choice, his fault.

 _Stay here and keep choosing, every day, to be the man I know you are_ , she had instructed, weeks ago, when they stood outside the Broken Tower on the spot Bran Stark’s spine had snapped. _That’s how you heal, Jaime, that’s how you get better._

But it couldn’t _actually_ be that easy, could it?

* * *

“I’m happy.”

“Fuck off.”

Instead of fucking off Jaime takes a seat beside his little brother, who is scowling down at a piece of parchment covered in chickenscratch figures and doodles. They’re in Tyrion’s “office,” a small annex off one of the war rooms that gets used most often. It’s stuffy and windowless and barely large enough to fit a desk, two chairs, Tyrion, and whatever unlucky person tries to bother him when he’s in there, but Jaime knows his brother actually prefers the uncomfortable conditions. He claims mildly hating his surroundings help him think better _(“It’s how I kept King’s Landing in check while Joffrey was on the throne”)._

“I mean it. For the first time in my life, I think I’m really—”

“You know what would make _me_ happy, is if these fucking Northerners learned how to write with pens instead of their own elbows,” Tyrion grouses, gesturing at the illegible scrawl on the parchment before him. “It’s that idiot Karstark, I told Sansa he doesn’t have the brains the Gods gave a tree stump but apparently she’s got to keep his family happy, so why _not_ put him in charge of recording the perishable ration figures, it’s not like that’s _important_ , it’s not like he fucks that up and thousands of people starve, no, I should just shut my mouth and try to read a ledger he clearly wrote in some kind of idiot code invented by idiots for diffusing the doctrine of idiocy!”

Jaime sits quietly until Tyrion is done. Then he gently pats him on the shoulder. “Little brother, do you need a nap?”

Tyrion throws his hand off with a sulky grunt. “Are you here for some reason besides further pissing me off?”

“I told you, I’m happy. Or at least I think I am.”

“Ah, so you’ve come to gloat. Well, go ahead, Gods know I’d rather hear it from you than from Davos. The man smuggles a few onions and thinks he knows everything about food transportation.” Tyrion rolls his eyes. “ _Knights.”_

“I’m not gloating. I’m…I’m…”

“What? I have things to do here, Jaime, if you haven’t noticed I’ve got three armies and an entire kingdom to keep running smoothly while our dear sister is plotting—”

“I’m bloody terrified.”

Tyrion finally looks up from his parchment. Jaime is grateful that he doesn’t laugh or roll his eyes. It was hard enough to say in the first place, let alone to a person who has no trouble calling everyone else idiots. But he doesn’t know who else to talk to _(except Brienne and he can’t talk about Brienne to Brienne)_ and Tyrion is many impressive and powerful things but he’s still his brilliant little brother who will listen if he has to.

“Terrified of what?”

“I don’t know.” He really doesn’t. It’s just a feeling, but it’s been sitting there in the middle of his throat all morning, ever since he had the thought—

_(I’m happy. And it might not stay.)_

“You must have some idea. Bees? Serpents? Freezing to death? A certain red-haired Wildling who wants to cut your cock off?”

“I don’t _know_ , all right? That’s the problem. I’ve always known what to worry about and who to hate and what to avoid, Father and—and everyone else told me well enough. But now it’s all—it’s all _fine_ , I don’t mind any of it, and surely that can’t be right. That’s called being stupid, isn’t it, not to fear anything?”

“Well, we could all still starve to death. Or freeze, like I said. A dragon could eat you, very nearly happened to me last week. Our sister could hatch a plan to murder us all in our beds. The sky could fall down and the Gods could turn off the sun. If you’re not willing to be a little bit stupid then you’re never going to be happy. Trust me, I fucked and drank and spent our family money for a wonderful few years before Catelyn Stark had me in chains and then Father married me to her teenage daughter. I like to think I knew what happiness was then.”

Jaime frowns. “Should I ask her to marry me?”

“I think Sansa Stark has had enough of marrying Lannisters,” Tyrion says blithely, picking up the cup of wine that is the only other thing small enough to fit in this tiny space. “But go ahead, best of luck.”

“Not Sansa, you ass, Brienne.”

Tyrion puts down the cup without taking a drink.

“Excuse me?”

“Should I ask Brienne—”

“You _haven’t asked her yet?_ ”

Tyrion is looking at him like he can’t decide if he feels sorry for Jaime or thinks his brother might have a head injury, and even though Jaime is the one who came here to ask for help he bristles like any big brother would. “Not in so many words!”

“Why _not_ , for heaven’s sake? Aren’t you crazy about the woman?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Then what the hell are you waiting for? If I were her I’d have run out of patience and cut you in half months ago!”

“She’s not—she doesn’t care,” Jaime stammers, thinking even as he says it that he actually has no idea how Brienne feels about marriage, or marriage to him, or him not asking her about marriage to him.

“Of course she does, she’s not an idiot!”

“Well _I_ don’t care.”

“Sweet Gods. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. At the very least you need to make an honest woman out of her!” Tyrion holds up a hand just as Jaime’s mouth opens to speak. “And before you go on a tirade about how Brienne’s honesty and honor are beyond reproach, she is nobler than the Father and sweeter than the Maiden, etcetera etcetera, I _know_ , all right, but the rest of the world is not so enlightened as I. You’ve been fucking each other silly ever since we defeated the Night King, if you don’t get married people are going to start calling her a whore again and you can’t spend the rest of your life smashing in teeth.”

“Yes I can.”

“Jaime…” Tyrion takes a deep breath, apparently grasping for calm. “You’re my brother and I love you, but sometimes you make it terribly, terribly hard.”

“If she wanted me to marry her, she would have said something,” Jaime insists. Tyrion snorts like a horse and shakes his head.

“Yes, that’s right, Ser Brienne the Talkative. The two of you danced around each other for _years_ before you finally went to bed, what in seven hells makes you think she’s going to waltz right up and ask for a proposal from a man who should absolutely know better?”

“I love her beyond sanity, I’d do anything for her, but nobody wants to marry an old man with one hand and a reputation that—"

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Tyrion says, dropping his head in his hands. “You’re really lucky she’s just as crazy about you as you are about her, though Gods know why. Especially when she could have the more handsome younger brother who is not a raging moron.”

“I know, I’ve tried to plead your case but she says you’re too political for her taste.”

Tyrion allows himself a smile, but his face falls a moment later.

“Jaime…I assumed…well, I don’t know what I assumed, but you have to sort this out.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I asked you about it,” Jaime says sulkily. It really is absurd that they’ve been living like this for three months and haven’t stood in front of a septon. Or that he hasn’t even given her the opportunity to turn down the option. But in the only other romantic relationship he’s ever had, marriage was never on the table, not even a fantasy to entertain. It’s not an excuse, but it might be an explanation. He could explain.

Tyrion would probably call him an idiot again if he tried.

“I don’t mean as a matter of love, I mean as a matter of—everything else! Lands, titles, birthrights, sigils—”

“None of that matters here,” Jaime says with blunt certainty. That’s why he’s happy, he realizes with a faint glimmer. It’s been three long months since banners and names made much of a difference at Winterfell, not with everyone scrambling to work together and survive regardless of lineage. Hell, he even taught a boy in the training yard last week who he’s pretty sure is the son of the one of the Glover arses he and Podrick thrashed in Brienne’s honor a while back. Three months since he’s really had to worry about the implications of being a Lannister, three months since there’s been any need to divide people by house loyalties or consider his father’s blasted dream of dynasty. Three months of being just Jaime, in the kitchens, in the yard, in Brienne’s bed.

He hasn’t asked her to marry him because they live like they already are, two people under the same roof, working hard and coming together at the end of the day. That’s all she wants from him and everything he’s happy to give, himself, him.

_(Jaime. My name is Jaime.)_

“Here? Where is here, brother?” Tyrion asks, his eyes sad like he’s seen the fragile image of domestic peace inside Jaime’s head. “Here is a moment in time. A long one, I grant you, but doomed like all things to end. Winter could last another month or another year, it could last ten years, but it always turns into summer eventually, and when it does the world will start to move again and you’ll be cogs in the mechanism, both of you.”

“We’re not—”

“You are.” Tyrion takes a big gulp of wine now. “Think about it, Jaime. You knighted her, that has political implications for Tarth and the Stormlands in connection to Casterly Rock, which you’re still technically set to inherit. Cersei’s desire to murder everyone and everything aside, you’re _also_ technically heir to the Iron Throne if something should happen to her, at least until she’s formally removed, and Queen Danaerys is already very aware of how many people would seek to undermine her own righteous claim. Add to that any bastard you may have put in Brienne by now, and—”

With a crash, Tyrion’s pile of parchment and ledgers goes flying into the wall, along with Jaime’s chair as he shoots to his feet. Tyrion freezes, wine halfway to his lips, while Jaime turns wildly in circles, looking for somewhere to pace in this tiny fucking office but there’s only about a square foot of spare floor space and he already threw his brother’s papers down on it, so that’s that.

_(A bastard in Brienne. Cersei’s heir. Casterly Rock._

_This is why I came to Tyrion. Because I knew that being happy meant I had to be fooling myself somehow, and I was right.)_

“Brother—”

“Don’t.”

“ _Brother.”_ Tyrion is offering him the wine. Jaime considers dumping it on his stupid intelligent head out of spite, but finally just takes it and drinks, enjoying the way it makes his eyes ache.

“You can still be happy,” his brother says quietly. Jaime scoffs.

“But I shouldn’t be. That was your point, wasn’t it?”

“My point was that being happy and being safe are two very different things, and while a person can do both at once, it takes a lot of hard work and luck and sometimes bribery.” Tyrion looks at him with fond exasperation, and the expression is so familiar it makes Jaime feels seventeen again.

“You wanted to know what to worry about. Now you know. Now you can try and do something about it.”

* * *

Jaime needs to clear his head, so he goes on a quest for dough.

It’s a mark of how much his life has changed that he doesn’t even bother feeling embarrassed to troll around the kitchens like a serving boy. Sometimes it’s like he can hear his own voice in his head, years younger, a lion’s roar that rings with arrogance and snobbery. _(“Baking bread, stirring stew, what’s next, fucking a drunk soldier for half a dragon? That’s what kitchen wenches do, after all.”)_ But it’s gotten easier and easier to confine to the past, just like the memory of Cersei’s touch and the sight of his children’s faces. Truly, Jaime never realized how much time he used to spend thinking about what was or wasn’t beneath him, what was and wasn’t worth his time. Maybe if he’d spent less, he’d have discovered his love for the feel of a good thick rye under his palm, the pleasant ache in his upper arms as he uses his stump to brace against the worktop and rolls the dough out with his good hand. It relaxes him almost as much as swordplay, and results in more than bruises and cuts.

Although the kitchens are above the earth on the first floor of the castles, the ovens are underground, great clay behemoths that gobble up firewood at an astounding pace. Jaime loves the dimness and the warmth down there, the low ceilings, all of it wonderfully soaked in the scent of baking bread. He finds Hanna over by the door, rolling out a gob of dough twice the size of her head. Her brow glistens with sweat and her triceps bulge, thick as a lumberman’s.

“Bloody took you long enough,” she grouses in her thick Northern accent. It took a couple weeks for him to understand her, especially since she generally speaks in what could be described as a series of articulated grunts. “’Take that there wheat and start in on ‘er.”

Jaime nods and grabs a pinch of flour from the brown cloth sack, sprinkling it wide and thin over the worktop _(every grain counts these days)_. He digs his fingers into the sticky dough and starts to knead, savoring the way he can feel it stretching out already. They move in sync, stretch and roll, roll and stretch.

“Went and saw my brother,” he says conversationally, not looking at her. He and Hanna tend to spend very little time making eye contact, preferring to speak to their dough rather than each other _(when they speak at all.)_

“The famous Imp. Still got his head up the Dragon Queen’s arse?”

“Seems that way.”

Roll, roll, roll, stretch, roll, roll, roll, stretch. Minutes pass in doughy silence, the ovens grumbling behind them. Jaime almost forgets about his problems, until he takes a second to be proud over how effective he’s become at kneading without rubbing his knuckles raw and then he remembers he’s happy and not safe and scared shitless about it.

“You have children?” he asks. She pauses to wipe her forehead with one veiny forearm.

“I did. I do, at that.”

“How many?”

“Eleven.”

Jaime’s hand slips as he rolls too hard and his knuckles knock against a jar of salt. He turns to stare at Hanna, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care, her hands moving steady as waves over sand.

“Eleven children?”

“Aye. Eight are dead. Four died fighting for the Young Wolf, two of the pox, another from fever when she cut her foot, and the last on the trip here from Last Hearth.”

_(Eight dead children._

_Losing three had been like swallowing molten lead each time, and he’d never even been allowed to hold his children, let alone birth and raise them._

_Eight dead bodies, eight lost futures, and she stands beside him making bread.)_

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. She shrugs. Her wide shoulders, wider even than Brienne’s, knock lightly against his.

“Still got three left, more than I could ‘a hoped for after these last few years. Wars, White Walkers, Wildlings, not to mention the bloody Boltons. My sister lost all a’ hers, and she had fifteen.”

Hanna shifts back on her heels and hoists the dough into the air, squinting as she tries to see if it’s thin enough to see the dim candlelight through. Jaime imagines her doing this at home in years past, surrounded by her eleven children, waiting for her husband to come home from his sheep. She would have been happy then, happy and safe, and she wouldn’t have been dreaming of eight corpses lying at her feet, or the rubble of her home after a wave of wights swept through it, or of kneading bread beside the sisterfucking Kingslayer in the cellars of Winterfell. She wouldn’t have known to worry about all that would come, all she would lose.

But it happened anyway.

“Do you miss them?” he asks before he can stop himself. She doesn’t respond for a moment, her brow furrowed as she examines the dough.

“Every day.”

“Do you ever wish it had gone differently?”

When she turns to look at him he can see the answer in her eyes before she says it.

“What would be the bloody point?” 

* * *

The next time he sees Brienne is that evening at supper. She enters the main hall a foot or so behind Lady Sansa, her head bent as she listens to her lady speak. When she straightens up, a lock of hair falls across her forehead. She tries to blow it back with a puff of breath, and when that doesn’t work she tries again, and when that doesn’t work again she twitches her head angrily like a sparrow on a fence.

“Gods, Lannister, do you have to do that while I’m eating?” growls the Hound. Davos snorts.

“You’re always eating.”

“And he’s always makin’ big dumb cows’ eyes at his woman. Puts me right off my feed,” the Hound replies, even as he tears into a second turkey leg.

Jaime doesn’t know who or what made the Hound think it was all right for him to sit beside Jaime, Davos, and Podrick (and Tyrion, when he’s not riding dragons or holed up in his “office”) at supper every night, but he’s been there since that first week after the Long Night and nobody’s told him to fuck off yet, even though he eats far more than his fair share of the meat and spends every meal bitching about the wide variety of things he hates. Davos and Tyrion seem to find him occasionally amusing, though neither Pod nor Jaime himself have much patience for the brute, not after what he did _(or tried to do, poor bastard)_ to Brienne. He even prefers Robert’s bastard Gendry, who will join their little group every once in a while if he’s not off with Arya Stark or working the forges straight through the night. The boy may look like his father but so far he’s significantly less obnoxious.

“At least he _has_ a woman,” Davos says drily. The Hound grunts.

“I’ve got a woman.”

“Oh yes? What’s her name?”

“Lady Piss-Off of House You Old Cunt.”

Podrick rolls his eyes and doesn’t look up from the potatoes he’s tucking into. The boy spends all his time either training in the yard or helping with the livestock, and he’s always bruised and ravenous at the end of the day. Brienne has told Jaime more than once that she’s worried Podrick might not be getting enough to eat, and Jaime has to bite back his reply that Podrick may starve the rest of the North all by himself if he doesn’t take it easy on the mutton pie.

Brienne is up at the head table with Lady Sansa now, but she stays standing as Lady Sansa takes her own seat. Jaime smiles when she looks out at the rest of the hall and their eyes meet almost immediately. Her lips twitch. He responds by getting to his feet and moving towards the western entrances, ignores the calls of his tablemates. He doesn’t bother to look and see if she’s following.

“You could have waited until after supper,” is the first thing she says when she joins him in the hall a couple minutes later. He straightens up from where he was leaning against the wall and shrugs.

“You hate mutton pie. Walk with me, it’s a lovely night.”

“I’m still hungry.”

“I’ve got half a rye loaf and some carrots in my pocket.”

“Do you plan to feed me like a horse?”

“Of course not, my lady. Besides, I know you much prefer riding to being ridden.”

Nothing makes him quite as happy as the way she blushes when he takes her by surprise. It’s getting harder the longer they spend together, but he still tries every day and when he gets it right she goes redder than a Lannister standard. It’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen.

She still walks with him, even if she pretends to be cross, snatching the offered bread and carrots without looking at him. They move down the hallway, up the stairs, and out onto the battlements that overlook Winterfell’s western wall. Two men guard each end of the walkway, but they know Jaime and Brienne well and only nod as they pass by and go to stand together in the center of the walk.

Jaime was right this morning, the snow has been heavy today and is growing heavier still, but judging by the clouds overhead the real blizzard won’t hit until later in the night. For now it’s still possible to see for a mile or so, the sprawl of the North laid out before them in its infinite cold quiet. Brienne stands close to his right elbow, her jaw moving as she chews a tough piece of breadcrust. The snow sticks to her fur collar and sits fluffy on her smoothly-combed hair. On a whim, he reaches up and ruffles her locks, flinging water droplets and snowflakes into both of their faces.

“Jaime!”

“I was helping.”

“You were being a twit,” she mumbles, whacking him lightly with her left hand. He turns and catches it in his own, twining their fingers together. Surprised, she glances down at him, eyebrows coming together.

“What is it?”

“What’s what?” he replies, rubbing his thumb over her wrist. She puts her other hand up against his cheek, and Gods, she’s so warm and she touches him so easily now, he loves that.

“Something’s bothering you.”

“No it’s not.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Now you ask the impossible.”

She rolls her eyes and drops her hand from his face. “If you’re in _this_ kind of mood I might as well go back inside and see if Lady Sansa needs any—”

“Marry me.”

He wonders if he shouldn’t have done this on the battlements, because for a brief moment she looks like she might topple right off and fall to her death.

“What?” Her voice cracks. He squeezes her hand reassuringly.

“I’m sorry, I misspoke.” Brienne blinks as he steps closer, his chest almost touching hers. “ _Will you_ marry me? I’ve learned my lesson about giving you orders, Ser Brienne.”

“Jaime, are you—what—”

“I’m waiting for an answer.”

“Stop,” she says fiercely, and suddenly she’s yanking her hand out of his and stepping back, her chin coming up, her eyes blazing, that blush coming back for the second time tonight. He knows that look, she’s ready for a fight. “I will not be mocked, ser, not by you.”

“I’m not mocking you.”

She glares at him, immovable.

“I’m not!”

“Then say what you mean.”

“I did, I—” He sighs. This is all Tyrion’s fault. “I should have asked you months ago.”

Brienne’s eyes widen, and there’s such genuine surprise in her face that suddenly Jaime’s stomach twists and he feels a pang of real anxiety.

_(Did she really think I hadn’t asked because…)_

“So?” he says, trying to go for a jovial tone. “How about it? Will you take me, little as I am?”

“Why?”

He blinks. “Why—why do you do think?”

“I’ve never asked for it.”

Her voice is quiet, and Jaime remembers the guards standing not so far away from them. He moves closer to her again, their cloaks brushing against each other.

“I know, _I’m_ the one asking for it.”

“I’ve never asked you for _anything_ ,” she whispers, and he’s about to ask what the hell she means by that but she keeps going, “and I don’t have anything to give back, my father is still the Evenstar and for all I know he may have had a son by now, from one of his many women, so I wouldn’t even be able to give you Tarth, nothing in the Stormlands, I might as well be a hedge knight or a lordling from Griffin’s Rook!”

That’s the thing: as much as Jaime loves to take her by surprise, he’s not at all fond of her doing the same to him.

“Give me—in the Stormlands—are you mad?”

“I’m not a good match,” she says bullishly. “I don’t have any claim to valuable land, I’m too old to spend the next twenty years having children, the only lineage I can claim is Ser Duncan the Tall—”

“I ask you to marry me and suddenly we’re talking about Ser Duncan the Tall, what’s _happening_?” Jaime can hear the desperate note in his voice but to be honest he really needs some help here.

“We’re talking about _marriage_ , Jaime!” She’s glaring at him again, although this time there’s a little more frustration mixed with the general ire. “Politics and titles and all that bullshit.”

“You’ve _thought_ about that?” he says incredulously, and today is really just one endless train of people rolling their eyes at Jaime Lannister, it’s not fair, he’s a smart guy, he just favors action over sitting around _thinking._

“Of course I did, I’m not an idiot.”

“Right. Of course. Only an idiot would pretend such things don’t matter in the midst of a winter so cold it’s frozen the whole country in a block of ice.”

“It won’t be winter forever, Jaime,” she tells him with the exact same patient-but-aggravated tone Tyrion used, it’s really not fair. “You’re a lord and a knight and heir presumptive to the Westerlands, I never asked you to give up your responsibilities for me because you shouldn’t have to, but if you need to do this then we have to discuss—”

“I _need_ to be with you. I _need_ to keep you safe, from wights and Cersei and jealous ignorant cocks. I _need_ the same for our children. That’s all I’m looking for, Brienne, not a chunk of the Stormlands or a fucking title.”

When did he start breathing so hard? When did he wrap his fingers so tightly around her bicep? When did her eyes overtake the whole Northern sky?

“You and me and ties that bind, for when the world goes to shit again and people get torn apart. If the Gods want to separate us they can come down here and do it themselves, because I’m doing everything a man can do to stay beside a woman,” he breathes. Snow is melting in his hair and running cold and slimy down his back but he feels warm all over as he leans in and kisses her, just once, chaste, a wax seal on a contract written in sapphire-blue ink.

“Be safe and happy with me, Brienne of Tarth, for as long as we both shall live. Or at least until someone starts another fucking war.”

“How about after that?” she says, and he laughs, except it sounds a little more like a sob, and it doesn’t really matter because nobody besides the silent guards and the silent snow are there to hear.

* * *

They do it that night, in front of the weirwood tree because fuck septs anyway, they’ve never done anything for either Jaime or Brienne besides hold bad memories. Tyrion witnesses for Jaime and Podrick witnesses for Brienne and Sansa performs the ceremony, her voice low and clear and calm even as a single tear cuts a path across her cheek. The whole thing takes about seven minutes, the tether tight around their joined hands and the air cold in their lungs as they say the words that were true before and are no truer after this, at least not to them, but now the world cannot deny what they are and happiness and safety depend on that then fuck it.

They go back to their chambers afterwards, and strip each other down and kiss on the bed but actually sort of forget to have sex, because it’s fairly late in the evening for both of them and they did already make love that morning and Jaime’s stump and Brienne’s hip tend to ache when blizzards come so in the end they lie there massaging each other’s sore joints and having a conversation that’s not really about anything because they both keep falling asleep in the middle of sentences. Finally Brienne yawns, tucks Jaime’s head under her chin, slings her ankle over his calf, and blows out the candle.

The next morning they get up and dress. She goes to attend Lady Sansa and he goes to the training yard, where he puts all his pupils through a rigorous round of drills and does some fun exhibition sparring with Pod. Tyrion leaves with the Dragon Queen on another trip that afternoon, and Jaime gives him a long, firm hug to see him off. In the evening she leaves the head table and sits beside him in the hall, stealing bites of his goat stew when he’s not looking and blushing when the Hound chomps on a carrot. They mention the wedding off-hand in the middle of a discussion about soil in the godswood: Davos blinks and wishes them a hearty congratulations, the Hound mutters something vaguely positive through a mouthful of chicken, and Podrick just stares dreamily at both of them until Brienne gets annoyed and orders him to put his eyes back in his head.

Later, when supper is over and the talk has wound down, Brienne pushes Jaime onto their bed and pulls his clothes off with her teeth, piece by piece, like something out of an erotic novel his father would have whipped him for reading. She climbs on top of him fully clothed and kisses and strokes and grinds against him, and when he grabs her and starts yanking her shirt off she mentions something about really needing to tie him up one of these days. Five minutes later she’s riding him, her back arched, one hand gently squeezing his throat, her voice rising higher and higher as she moves her hips. Jaime thrusts and grunts and struggles against her grip and it’s better than anything, it’s the best, it’s pure and it’s them and it’s the same as it always was before he was her husband and she was his wife in the eyes of the old Gods and the new.

Nothing has changed. But it’s done so beautifully.


	5. One-Hundred-Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I was going for bingo. This is just becoming a massive fluff-pile now, so if you want a ton of angst and sturm/drang then I don't recommend coming here. I just want these two fucking idiots to get to make normal human mistakes and have normal human good times for a change, and I know it's not realistic (especially in this crapsack world) but guess who cares NOT THE GODS OF FANFIC AND NOT ME
> 
> Also there will be other fics in this 'verse but not necessarily in the vein of the main timeline coming soon. They will involve Gendry and Arya and Davos and Tyrion and any other shitty sarcastic dickbag babies I can think of.
> 
> Also also there's a lot of little easter egg reference to previous chapters/fics in this, so HAVE FUN KIDS, GOSH AREN'T I JUST THE KOOKIEST
> 
> Thank you for not judging me

**112 Days**

* * *

“Do they hurt when he’s rough with them?”

Brienne stares at the floor and pretends she’s in the middle of a tournament, a melee event, maybe the one back at Renly’s camp when she beat Loras Tyrell’s skinny ass into the dirt.

_A big man, not as big as her but broader across, dark pitted armor with an iron-banded cudgel in his hand, coming at her from the left, feint a retreat then go for his left shoulder and throw him into a spin, kick him in the hip, feel something crack—_

“Ser Brienne?”

“Yes,” she grits out.

The Wildling woman, Gilly, nods thoughtfully and moves her hand to Brienne’s other breast, gentle fingers shaping themselves around the curve of soft flesh and the muscle underneath. Brienne winces, tender even to the light touch.

“Does your head still ache? Want some water?”

“No,” Brienne snaps, and then feels bad. “No thank you. I’m feeling much better.”

Gilly makes a sympathetic humming noise as she continues to poke and prod.

There are approximately two people in the world Brienne wants touching her breasts, and one of them is herself.

_This one’s fast, squirrely, mostly chainmail and he’s taken down three men already by going for the backs of their thighs or their armpits, he darts in quick with a skewer but Brienne knows how to watch her angles and keep her soft spots at her center of gravity, so pivot neatly and punch him square in the chest, a brutal hit, he flies backwards, chainmail jingling—_

“Your nipples have puffed up too,” Gilly observes, squeezing gently. Brienne fights the urge to throw an actual punch rather than an imaginary one. This girl seems blunt and smart and sweet enough, she doesn’t deserve to be the unknowing target of a lifetime of violently-expressed emotional problems.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Really? They’re like mushroom caps. Must be sore.”

Brienne’s eyes slam shut.

_A tall man who towers over even her, he’s relying on his reach to mow down anyone who gets too close but she’s smarter than that, all she has to do is wait for him to overextend on his lunge, take out his knee, he goes down hollering—_

“How about pissing? More than usual?”

“Yes,” Brienne grunts. It’s been humiliating, weeks of having to relieve herself four or five times during hour-long meetings. Not to mention the other issue of—

“How about shitting? Blocked up?”

Brienne’s teeth grind together. “Yes.”

“Sickness in your stomach but you’re hungry all the time? Burn in your chest? Tired after a long night’s sleep?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Brienne says wearily, because what’s the point now of being precious about it?

“And was today the first time—”

“ _Yes.”_ She doesn’t want to talk about _today._

“Right. When did you last bleed?”

“That—I’m not—I—”

“You’re not so regular,” Gilly finishes for her, and Brienne jerks her head in a rough nod. “Did you have it before the last full moon?”

Brienne shakes her head.

“Have you ever gone more than two months dry before?”

_Four of them ganging up on her, their shoulders close together, but she moves sharply back into the throng and they have to split up to come at her and she takes them out one by one, punching, swinging, kicking, tackling, her whole body behind every blow—_

Brienne opens her eyes at the sound of a delighted squeal from over in the corner, where Gilly’s little son is crawling around and occasionally teething on carved wooden furniture. The room is small, too small for three people (and soon four), but Brienne supposes maesters don’t usually have families and so they don’t need much space. Samwell Tarly is not the usual.

“No.”

“Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?” Gilly steps back and drops her hand. Brienne immediately gets to work doing up the laces on her shirt, hyper-aware of the ugly bruise forming on her collarbone where she hit the edge of the table when—

“What’s what?” she asks, head down, fingers flying, knowing the answer already.

“You’ve got a babe in you.”

_The last man standing, a young knight in golden armor with his mace and shield, she’s charging him but he’s quick and he dodges and then delivers a crushing blow across her back but she absorbs it and comes back hard on her heel, her fist is moving with unbelievable force and there’s a beautiful crunching noise when she makes contact with his jaw—_

“Are you unhappy?”

Brienne looks up, dragged out of her melee fantasy and back to a place where nothing is as simple as a good clean fight. Gilly is frowning at her, and though she’s much younger than Brienne she looks a little like Septa Roelle used to, all concern and know-how and wisdom about unpleasant things. Her own stomach is round enough with her coming child and she’s been playing midwife in Winterfell since before the Long Night, so much as Brienne wants to huff and snort and say she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, it’s undeniable that she does.

Fuck.

“I’m not—I don’t—”

“It’s all right if you are,” Gilly says quietly. “I had nineteen sisters and none of them were ever happy about having babies. I wasn’t happy about little Sam, not before I knew we’d be leaving. But if you don’t want it, you should take care of it soon.”

“Take care of it?” Brienne’s shirt is all laced up again and she doesn’t know where to put her hands now, on her thighs or her hips or her stomach _(oh no)_.

“Yes, there are a couple ways that aren’t too dangerous, not when you’re only a few months along. We used to take turns getting rid of babes, so that Craster—our father—he wouldn’t notice only half of us were pregnant at once.”

In the corner, little Sam burbles as he gnaws on a wooden chair leg. Brienne’s blood pounds in her ears, and she looks at this young woman, barely more than a girl, speaking so calmly about such things—

It doesn’t exactly dispel the panic, but she does feel the tightness in her chest ease slightly.

_This is many things, but it is not that. It could be so much worse._

_I never even thought it would happen at all._

“I’m not unhappy.”

“Good,” Gilly sighs, all smiles again, as though the nightmare of all nightmares wasn’t just on her tongue. “It was the one-handed knight who put it in you, wasn’t it? He’s very handsome.”

Brienne just barely refrains from rolling her eyes. “He likes to think he is. And yes, he—put it—there.”

“Good. He seems like a decent man. Devoted, too, like my Sam. Will he be glad to be a father, do you think?”

“Yes,” Brienne says quietly. Right now her world is spinning and she’s not sure of a single damn thing, but she thinks, she hopes, she imagines that Jaime will be glad.

_Jaime will be fucking transported._

Gilly grins as Brienne shrugs her cloak back on. “That’s so lovely. And you seem nice and healthy, not to mention big and strong, you shouldn’t have too much trouble carrying.”

“What happened today—”

“Oh, that’s common enough. Just sit down if you start feeling it come on again, it should go away in due time.” Gilly rubs her own stomach thoughtfully. “Though this is your first, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course. Why?” Brienne’s voice sounds a bit shrill to her own ears, but Gilly doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh nothing. Just, you never really know what to expect, do you?”

* * *

Brienne has nobody to blame but herself. Not even Jaime, although she is sorely tempted.

Because the truth is, he tried to be careful, in the beginning. Their very first time had been a clumsy breathless rush of tension and release and more than a little alcohol, but he’d still had the presence of mind to finish on her stomach rather than inside her. Between the emotion and the lust and the wine, Brienne’s memory of the whole thing is a little fuzzier than she would like, but she can recall how jarring it was when he was so suddenly gone. One second it felt like she was losing her mind in the weight and strength of him, a big ungainly mess of limbs and skin and muscle that felt so fucking good and they were one body, clenching and clinging and pressed together, joined and full—

Then nothing. A weird absent cramp between her hips, like swinging for a target and missing, the momentum carrying her into empty space and turning direction into motion sickness.

It happened the next time too. He’d been moaning and swearing viciously into her ear not a moment before, but suddenly he was choking her name through his teeth as he rocked back on his heels and grabbed hold of himself and his hand whipped up and down in a blur and then it happened right in front of her, messier and far less refined than her septa had ever made it sound, except she didn’t care because the noise he made and the way his eyes were locked right on her face _(her ugly mannish unlovable face)_ had made all the embarrassment and the shock and the stickiness totally unimportant.

“Is it still good?” she’d asked much later, after his tongue on her and a brief nap and dinner and then another round when she’d been on top and so lost in fascination at how this all worked and how much she was feeling that he’d had to shout like a field commander and use his not inconsiderable strength to physically heave her off him just in time for his end to spatter the sheets and his own stomach.

“It’s all good,” he’d panted, face in her shoulder, his fingers still shaking even as they slid down her stomach towards where she felt that bad feeling again, empty, trying to contract around nothing.

“But when you come out of me—I mean, when you don’t stay inside—”

“I won’t risk it,” he breathes, kissing her overheated skin. “Not now, Brienne, not you.”

She’d felt a pang of rejection _(not you, what does that mean, was the thought of putting a child in me truly so horrific)_ but then he shifted closer and his fingers were doing a strange paddling motion against that part of her that—he was—and it felt so—and in her ear his voice, “No child of ours will be called bastard,” and then she turned her head and kissed him and they stopped talking.

She’d known about how children were made and what the stickiness and the in and out of it all meant long before Jaime, because her septa may have exaggerated but she didn’t lie. And she’d always thought _(on the rare occasions she’d allowed herself to even entertain the fantasy that this could one day happen for her)_ that she would never be one of those women who was stupid enough to let a man recklessly get her with child. She’d scoffed at the notion, looked down on the camp followers and whores and farmers’ wives who raised the children of soldiers they’d been too lazy or too careless to pull away from.

And if the worst should happen, if she were taken by force and had no choice, then she’d find moon tea, she’d swallow rocks, she’d pay a squire to kneel on her stomach, there were always options. Nothing, especially not harried, graceless, ignoble fucking, could distract her from her responsibilities, or from the flaws of her own woman’s body.

Brienne knows it’s impossible, but she somehow wishes she could apologize to all those other women, the ones she’d judged so harshly over the years. Because by the third or fourth time she slept with Jaime, she was dreading him pulling away, irrationally desperate to stay locked together at that final moment. Maybe it felt like rejection, maybe it felt lonely, maybe it just didn’t feel as _good_ , but damn her woman’s body, she wanted him to fuck her through his own weakest moment, wanted his vulnerability, wanted to be trusted with that moment.

She wanted to receive that, not just at a distance, she wanted to stay _them_ from beginning to end.

And then the next time he was fucking her, the night after he and Podrick had beaten the shit out of some Northmen who called her whore, she was lying there covered in sweat, still shaking and weak after coming hard enough to make her ears ring, and in the meantime he’d done his best to let her recover but he’d started back up soon enough and she could tell how close he was because of the bruising grip on her breast and the strangled cries coming out of him, he’d pounded into her from behind again and again without hesitancy, no sign of stopping, and she’d closed her eyes and dived into the moment and clenched around him like she was holding him there and he’d shouted and convulsed and it felt so strange, warm and rushing inside her, a reverse-release of pressure, and for a long second she could feel the incredible tension strung up and down his body and how he sang like a plucked bowstring, and then all at once he’d gone limp, shuddering, his breath strained and heavy against her cheek, and in the morning it was all she could think about, the way he’d come apart against and inside and around her, how strong it made her feel, how the energy lingered in her even after it had drained out of him, and finally how raw her heart had been in that moment, brought to the surface by pleasure and trust and relief.

_I’ve never wanted to let someone in like that before._

She’d started drinking moon tea, at least for the first week or so, and though Jaime had been worried at first he’d calmed down when she told him she was taking care of it. Brienne knew he liked finishing inside of her better too, apparently all men did, and the more she learned about sex and what _she_ liked the less she wanted to deny herself the best parts, the ones that made her feel the most alive and the most wanted and the most brave. She, her, Brienne the Beauty, least desirable woman in Westeros, was fucking a man who loved her and all that she was, whom she loved back with an intensity that terrified her sometimes, and if the impossible were already real she couldn’t bring herself to limit it. They rode into battle together every time and she hated the idea of ever splitting apart like that again, it was the opposite of what she loved about sex, it was facing infinity separately instead of together.

But she also hated moon tea. It was thick and bitter and upset her stomach for hours at a time. One day she forgot to drink it in the morning and promised herself she would do it tomorrow, and then she forgot again two days after, and then it was months later and she hadn’t touched the stuff.

Careless and reckless, indeed.

It’s not as though they haven’t talked about children again since that first mention of the possibility of a bastard. She’s not a spry sixteen-year-old with a ripe womb but she’s strong and healthy and has more than a few childbearing years left, and more urgently she’s the current heir to Tarth _(as far as she knows, her father may have finally gotten his act together and produced a son with one of his many ‘companions’)_ and will eventually need her own successor. Brienne has always known this, always accepted that it’s her duty to her house and to her people, and that any man forced to wed her _(because it was always “forced,” always, before Jaime)_ would have his house considered too, and she was responsible for that as well. But truth be told, while she’s never really formed an opinion on children themselves _(some of them seem nice enough but going by her experiences with the Stark children they tend to require a lot of rescuing and shouting),_ what gives her pause is pregnancy.

She hates the idea, the swelling and unbalancing of a body that has always been so different and specific and the only thing in the world she has total control over. In truth, she’s often wondered whether she even has the parts to become pregnant, her body already so unwomanly and awkward and unsuited for the purposes it has been bred to serve. The thought has always been an odd mixture of bitterness and comfort, a tonic to treat her distaste for the possibilities of carrying a child.

After all, if it turns out she _can_ have children, then she’ll look like every other pregnant woman at the end of it all, ungainly and bulging and undeniably feminine, and any respect she could ever win from men—from her fellow soldiers and supposed brothers-in-arms—would evaporate in the farce that would be a woman heavy with child and wielding a sword. She dreads being stared at the way pregnant women are, she dreads the crying and the exhaustion, and more than anything she dreads the blood and the birthing bed, the endless and unfair things that can go wrong and leave women broken and cold in the wake of soft new life. Her own mother spent her last pregnancy constantly sick and weak, the maester’s potions and poultices only making her worse, and then she had died bearing twin brothers when Brienne was four. Brienne still has blurry scarlet-red memories of the soaked linens and her father’s sobbing.

The thought of surviving the Boltons and the Hound and the Long Night and everything else, only to die ripped open by a small blue corpse that her heartbroken father might throw in the sea, is more than she can bear.

_And yet Jaime._

Jaime’s mother died that way too, except instead of a little grave the ordeal produced Tyrion, a child bound to more suffering than any stillborn babe would ever know. Jaime saw what that did to his brother, his sister, his father, and subsequently the country. He tells her that he’s old, he’s already seen three children be born, grow up, and die, he knows it’s selfish to ask for anything more, maybe even profane, insulting, a sin. And he understands her own fears as well. Cersei loved her children but she went through so much pain birthing them, he says, and he would never wish unnecessary suffering on Brienne.

But _Gods_ , he wants more children, and he wants them from her. She can hear it in his voice when he lies beside her in bed, dreamily speculating on different futures they might have. He tries to sound like he’s joking when he describes their tall sons and taller daughters, tournaments between siblings, a yellow-haired platoon of noble starbursts. But his voice goes soft and sincere so quickly, and he comes up with names for them, daydreams places he could take them, things he could teach them. He never mentions Casterly Rock or the name Lannister, instead painting them as natives of the Stormlands, island children who knew how to weather hurricanes and sail ships. He imagines all the things he wanted to do with Tommen and Myrcella and Joffrey, like putting them to bed or riding them around on his shoulders or sending them to bed without supper when they’ve poured wine on the cat. _Even when I had children, I wanted so badly to be a father,_ he says.

 _Then_ you _carry them and risk your life,_ she wants to reply, but she doesn’t, because it’s not his fault that the Gods sacrifice women with such cruelty.

And also because…she sort of likes them, these tales he spins about the children they could have. She likes protecting people, she’s good at it, and she likes teaching, she’s not terrible at that either, and sometimes when she looks at Pod or Arya or even Lady Sansa she feels a pang of _mine_ , but they’re not really hers.

But others could be. Children with golden hair and broad shoulders and Jaime’s smile, who would never grow up being told they were wrong for wanting to help in the ways they were best suited. Children who would be loved for exactly what they were, not the people they complemented or the titles they represented. Children who would be part of a family, her family, she could have a family.

It’s been less than four months since the Long Night, and they both know winter won’t last forever. That’s why they got married that one night, in their spare time, like an errand neither wanted to forget to run. Life after Winterfell waits on the horizon, far but prominent, and they’d already started preparing in some small ways, looking forward to what they might need in the new world, a world where children and families and legacies could be good things.

But she didn’t drink the nasty fucking moon tea, so now they’re here.

* * *

If she’s being honest with herself, she’d already known before today, but she’d been doing a great job of not thinking about it.

There was no warning, not really, maybe a bit of a headache as they reached the third hour of the meeting. It’s Lady Sansa and Lord Snow and the Dragon Queen and Tyrion and Lord Varys and Davos Seaworth and a half dozen other people who don’t like each other and can’t decide on anything, and the longer she stands there behind Sansa’s chair the more Brienne can feel her lady’s frustration and tension like it’s her own, and Jaime’s not here today because they’re not talking about military strategy, so she can’t catch his eye or brush her arm against his or even look at him, let his dear familiar face and scruffy hair and smooth, newly-shaven jaw distract her from all this fucking talk talk talk and from the stuffy room because someone keeps overfeeding the fire and from the light that’s coming in through the window so fucking bright, it’s like a spike through her head—

The next thing she knows, the world is sideways and her chest is a blaze of pain and she can’t breathe.

Her first reaction is to flail and fight, an instinct that has served her well in the past. But even as her fists come up and she tries to roll over _(when did she get on her back, did they sneak up on her)_ strong hands grip her firmly by the shoulders and the wrists and across her waist, there’s more than two of them, a whole army is coming down on her and she’s back in a pile of wights fighting for life and she shouts and wrenches one arm free but then she hears a voice calling her name—

“Brienne! Brienne stop, it’s all right, just, stop, lie still, Brienne—”

_Lady Sansa is here, she’s close, she needs me to—what?_

Brienne finally quiets, and as she does the blurs of light and dark around her sharpen and she finds herself looking up at the worn, worried face of Jon Snow himself. He’s leaning over her, his are the hands on her wrists. The concern in those dark eyes concerns her.

“My lord,” she says, her own voice sounding muzzy and strange in her ears. Jon Snow lets out a short breath and nods, his hair falling forward over his face.

“You fainted dead away, Ser Brienne,” he says. His heavy Northern accent is like snow on her ears. “We’ve called for the maester, he should be here any second.”

“I’m fine,” she says automatically, but when she tries to move his hands tighten and so do the others and she can hear Sansa gasp, out of sight but close.

“Just wait for Sam, he’ll make sure you’re—”

“I’m _fine,_ ” she insists again, and from above she hears a foreign-flavored grunt.

“You are not fine.” It’s the commander of the Unsullied, Grey Worm, she can see his face upside-down now and he’s the one holding her shoulders. “You lost your feet and fall across the table.”

“Let me up,” she demands, but they don’t move. “I didn’t faint.”

“You did, ser,” Lord Snow says, and she hates the sympathy in his serious face. “We couldn’t rouse you for at least a minute. You need a maester.”

Brienne is burning all over with humiliation. The one thing she has always been able to trust is her body, its strength and reach and capability, no matter that everyone hates it and counts it as her greatest sin, that just makes it even dearer only to her. It is her safe harbor and her unbreakable tool and it has defended itself against every attack with fierce determination, even when she forces it to sit still and wait for a later moment to strike. It’s never betrayed her like this before, in front of her lady, in front of Hands and Kings and Queens and people who she has worked so hard to earn the respect of.

Now that she’s still, the pain in her chest narrows and concentrates to a single point on her collarbone. She grits her teeth and tries to ignore it, but she’s also starting to take in the rest of the room, the murmurs and shuffling as people peer in at her, and Sansa is somewhere just out of reach but Brienne can’t find her and she’s still being held down by three men, only two of whom she can see, and her head hurts too and the ache of shame is spreading through her veins and she feels big, vast, a felled beast on the floor that they all flock to marvel at.

She’s glad Jaime’s not here because he would fuss and paw at her and make her feel even more of a ungainly fool than she already does, but at the same time she feels angry and scared and embarrassed and she wants to curl up as small as she can in the arms of someone strong enough to protect her, someone who loves her and will make it not feel so bad, she wants Jaime, _where’s Jaime?_

It takes two or three excruciating minutes for Maester Tarly to arrive, and when they ease her off the floor she keeps her eyes resolutely on the wall ahead, willing her blazing cheeks to go white and her traitorous knees not to shake as she is heaved to her feet. She feels sick and dizzy and her collarbone hurts, and in the back of her mind is the pulsing pounding suspicion that this is exactly what she’s been trying to pretend doesn’t exist, this is punishment for avoiding the inevitable confrontation with her own shape, and when the Maester suggests she retire to the chambers he shares with his Wildling wife and they can “take a look at what’s gone wrong,” Brienne briefly considers ripping away from the supporting arms of Jon Snow and Grey Worm and making a run for it through the castle, to Jaime or to the godswood or to anywhere dark and private and safe for tears.

One look at Lady Sansa’s ashen face is enough to stop her.

She lets Grey Worm and Tarly escort her out of the meeting room and down to his chambers. She answers Tarly’s questions honestly and drinks the water and eats the dark flax bread he gives her, and when his Wildling wife stops watching warily from the corner like some forest snow-fox and comes forward to ask if she can examine Ser Brienne—“look her over, in private”—Brienne’s heart sinks even further, and then Tarly leaves and Gilly asks her to open her shirt and she closes her eyes and finds the melee inside.

* * *

“Oh Brienne! Thank the Gods, I was so—are you all right? Should you be standing?”

“I’m perfectly fine, my lady.” Brienne doesn’t class it as a lie, since it’s true, she’s not sick or dying and she knows that’s what Sansa is worried about. For what it’s worth, she feels absolutely fine now, aside from the throb in her collarbone.

Her lady is standing at her office desk, the quill she was using to reply to a scroll covered in chickenscratch clutched loosely in her hand.

“You fainted, Brienne,” Sansa says, and her voice doesn’t shake but it’s brittle as frozen steel. “I heard a bang and looked over to see you smash down onto the table and roll off onto the floor, you were just lying there. You looked—you looked dead.”

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

“Don’t be _sorry_ , I just—sit down, please.”

“I’m really fine—”

“I am not asking you to sit, ser, I am commanding.”

A shiver flies down Brienne’s spine at the cold in that voice and those eyes. Even when Lady Sansa speak with love, it is the love of the North, strong as the Wall and made of ice.

Brienne finally plants herself in the chair on the other side of her lady’s desk, the narrow arms squeezing her hips and thighs. She hates these kinds of chairs, they make her feel like a bulky haystack. Sansa sits too, her entire demeanor relaxing slightly as she sees Brienne move without dizziness or pain.

“Now then, what did Sam say? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m—there’s been—I thought I should—”

Brienne takes a deep breath and decides to just fucking do it. 

“I’m carrying a child, my lady.”

Sansa’s entire body goes stiff. Brienne can literally see every joint lock, knuckle to shoulder, as those sharp eyes grow so wide they seem about to fall off her face. All of a sudden, the air is thick with tension.

_Did she mishear me?_

“A child,” she says again, enunciating a little. “The Wildling midwife was sure, she said that—that sometimes in the early weeks, a babe will steal your breath and make you, ah—swoon. It’s not a sign of anything dangerous, it’s normal for many, she says.”

“Is it…” Sansa’s voice is so quiet it’s barely a whisper, Brienne has to lean forward to hear. “Is it…were you forced?”

Brienne has the strange and inappropriate urge to burst out laughing.

But then she takes another look at Sansa’s face, at the way her eyes gaze through Brienne without seeing her, at the tendons standing out in her neck, and she realizes.

“No, my lady, I was not.” She keeps her words slow and clear, never breaking eye contact. Sansa takes a deep breath, her fingers straining where they press flat against the top of her desk.

“They didn’t take you—”

“There was no ‘they,’ Sansa.”

“He held you down?” Sansa breathes. “Did you fight, did—”

“I’m all right,” Brienne tells her, and cautiously stretches out a hand, closer and closer, until her fingers rest lightly on the back of Sansa’s wrist. “Ser Jaime would never hurt me. And no one who’s tried has lived.”

A tremor goes through Sansa, so lightly Brienne only know because she feels it where they touch.

This isn’t the first time. Ever since their conversation months ago about Ramsay Bolton and Joffrey, when Brienne had stood brushing Sansa’s hair and telling her quiet details about going to bed with a person who loved you and not one who lived for your pain—well, Brienne has since realized how very few people know the extent of what Sansa has been through. She prides herself on the responsibility of being one of them. And part of that responsibility is recognizing when Sansa hears one thing and receives another, when some word or thought or image she comes across falls into a hidden pit in her head and without warning she’s back there, in the bed, on the floor, laughter in her ears, blood in her mouth, and the world around her is only shade.

It’s happened before, at a meeting or during supper or even on a routine stroll through the castle. Before Brienne understood she would merely stand closer to Sansa while her lady worked through it, breathing heavily and gripping the folds of her dress in trembling fists, sometimes leaning on Jon Snow’s shoulder if he were nearby. Now she steps in, speaks to Sansa in slow, calm tones, throws her a buoy to keep her from being sucked down into the depths of the black whirlpool. Her lady is vulnerable when this happens, and the Lady of Winterfell cannot afford to be vulnerable, but if she must be then Brienne is grateful to be trusted with it.

In this moment Lady Sansa seems to be coming back already, her hands slowly relaxing and her eyes refocusing as she discovers Brienne in front of her, unhurt, whole, in no danger of being ripped or snapped the way Sansa had once been, still felt in so many ways.

“A child,” Sansa murmurs, and she turns her palm upwards so it meets Brienne’s and they thread their fingers together. “Gilly…she said you’re well, that it wasn’t a sign of anything—”

“No, it happens, apparently. Like the sickness or ankle-swelling.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Two months.”

“A _child_ ,” and now Sansa is smiling and her eyes are back and Brienne breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh Brienne.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Brienne says awkwardly, not sure if that’s the right thing to say but saying it anyway because she is truly grateful for her lady’s joy on her behalf. Brienne is ashamed to admit it but a part of her had worried about telling Sansa. After all, a pregnant woman is not the ideal bodyguard, especially not when she faints in important meetings, and Brienne takes her duties beyond seriously. If Sansa had been angry with her for setting something before her job as sworn sword, if she had dismissed her, or even stripped her of her title—

Unrealistic, perhaps, but a stomach-churning thought all the same.

It doesn’t matter now, though, because Sansa’s smile is getting bigger by the second, and she looks so young again, so happy and excited, that it breaks Brienne’s heart a little bit. She’s never had another woman in her life whom she could share things like this with, who would be happy for her without caveats or conditions. She squeezes Sansa’s hand tighter and gives her a very small but very real smile.

“So how do you feel?” her lady asks, crowding closer like they’re sharing girlish secrets. “Different yet?”

“A little.” Brienne doesn’t really want to bring up the pissing or the shitting issues. For obvious reasons.

“I love getting ready for babies,” Sansa says happily. “Everything is so new and exciting. My mother taught me how to sew baby clothes when she was pregnant with Bran and how to—oh, you’re not going to need new dresses because you don’t wear them, so that’s good—but for when you get bigger I can help alter your tunics and breeches! And we’ll have to find a cradle for your room, although I’m sure a new one could be built—”

“A cradle?” Brienne feels a little unsteady in the face of Sansa’s enthusiasm. “What if winter ends before the babe is born?”

“And what if it doesn’t? Babies are born in winter and spring and every other time, it’s no use trying to guess how or when it will happen. You’ll be big before you know it, and if you need a cradle when the time comes I won’t have you caught without one.”

Brienne clears her throat and looks down. “I won’t be able to protect you when I get that big, my lady, not to the extent that you require. A child will complicate many things.”

“You are not my only protector,” Sansa reminds her, and for some reason the image of the Hound flashes through Brienne’s mind. He has a tendency to hang around Sansa when Brienne’s off-duty. She doesn’t like to think about it much. “And complications can be good, when they come with new life. Gods, Brienne, a _babe,_ your babe, after everything that’s happened—oh, you’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

“I don’t know about that,” Brienne snorts. Her good mood dims a little.

“You doubt your abilities, ser?”

“I doubt my ability to be soft and sing songs and wash dirty swaddling,” she replies, her voice derisive but the doubt and fear already hammering away inside her breast. They’ve been lurking there since she left Gilly’s room, warning her that she has never been good at being a woman and what’s more womanly than being a mother, of course she’ll screw it up.

“Oh who cares,” Sansa scoffs. She waves her hand dismissively. “Being a mother isn’t just about all that. Let Ser Jaime do the singing and the washing, he loves that kind of thing.”

Brienne lets out a startled laugh, one that surprises even her, because not only is it rare for Sansa to speak of Jaime with something so close to affection, but she’s also completely right.

“Have you told him yet?” Sansa asks, and Brienne stops laughing.

* * *

Jaime Lannister, golden commander of the battlefield and vicious warrior lion, has taken to domesticity with an enthusiasm that Brienne finds both perplexing and breathtakingly adorable.

He loves baking bread in the kitchens, polishing her armor when it dulls, picking up around their chamber, doing their personal washing. After every big storm he goes out and finds winter roses or sprigs of holly to brighten the room. He’s made a game out of learning to do things one-handed, claiming all the hundreds of little every-day tasks that used to frustrate and annoy her and making them his responsibility, drops in his cup of confidence. Her day is often busier than his but in the evenings he’s always the one most eager to retire to their chamber and close the rest of the world away, leaving it just the two of them as they undress and she builds a fire and he putters around putting things away and they talk in calm and loving circles, no walls, no roads to follow, just trust at the end of the day.

He never had that before, she knows, not with Cersei or his father, not at court, not even as a commander on the move. He’s had servants his whole life, doing all the little things for him and leaving his mind too much time to wander, and it increased ten-fold after he lost his hand. Plus, he was never safe to linger in Cersei’s rooms, to spend the twilight hours with her in peace and decompression. Whatever it is he gets from being the keeper and caretaker of their life together, Brienne isn’t entirely sure, but she loves him and he loves this and it’s not hurting anyone so who the hell cares.

She also gives him shit for it left and right, because if they don’t communicate in insults and arguments then they don’t have anything worth saying, but even if she still finds him annoying and smug and _Jaime,_ that doesn’t mean she can’t also enjoy him enjoying himself. And actually, she won’t lie and say it’s not nice having someone else doing her washing and cleaning and sneaking her extra fruit tarts from the supper table. She also won’t act like it doesn’t delight and amuse and simply thrill her to see him running around like a bossy fishwife on Tarth, clucking over an unmade bed or cold bathwater.

It’s—it’s _cute_ , honestly, and she’s never been fond of cute things but she is now, apparently, when that thing is her once-haughty now-housekeeper husband. She remembers Jaime saying a while back that it felt strange to be happy after a lifetime of—well, what they’ve each been through, and he’s right, it is strange to simply live life without constant worry or grief or anger, but that’s what they’re doing now and Jaime’s doing it his way.

There’s also the added perk that it…kind of _does things_ for her.

Just seeing him be all— _sincere._ When he’s concentrating so hard on running a wet shirt across the washboard, or carefully lining up their boots by the door, or sweeping up bits of hair after he’s shaved. It makes her go runny and hot inside when she sees this stupid, aggravating, beautiful, stubborn man make their cold Northern room into a home, when she sees him unabashedly caring about their life together, supporting it, _wanting_ it, this idiot with his clever eyes and brave heart and rough, complicated, painful past, and when it gets to be too much she has to pin him against the wall _(or beg him to pin her)_ and kiss him until he gasps for air _(or be kissed to within an inch of her life)_ and make him beg, squirm, swear, take care of him just as thoroughly and meticulously as he takes care of the chores _(or be reminded that inside the housecat lives an eternal lion who roars for more and ravages his lady without mercy)._

She has to have him, be had by him, remind herself that it’s real and she’s his and this isn’t a fever dream left over from some wound sustained during the Long Night.

This is real, and this is Jaime, with just the two of them. A baby—he already wants one so badly, but the chance to care for his child, something he longed for and was three times denied, is going to make the vast frozen North heaven for Jaime Lannister. She can imagine him with the baby in a sling around his chest like a common nursemaid, cooing down at the tiny face. She can imagine him singing late at night, the way he does to her sometimes, silly songs that don’t mean anything except love and sleepiness. She can imagine his joy and his gratitude and his determination. All she has to do is tell him.

_Why am I so nervous?_

* * *

When Brienne hears a shout and looks over to see Jaime storming towards her from down in the courtyard, it’s almost a relief.

“Jaime,” she starts, but he doesn’t stop, he’s got a murderous look on his face and he practically flings a poor kitchen boy out of the way and charges up the stairs to where she stands with her lady on the wooden walkways that run the perimeter of the courtyard, and if Brienne hadn’t moved to cut him off he would have shoved Lady Sansa aside to get to her and then it would literally be her job to beat the shit out of him. Which she wouldn’t have minded all _that_ much _(and really after a few months of good fortune he could benefit from being put in his place every once in a while),_ but she’d rather avoid that particular ordeal.

“You collapsed,” he says, and his voice is like gravel as he grabs her bicep with his good hand. His stump _(the golden hand has been gathering dust in their room for months now)_ is at her waist, seeking to loop around her and pull her against him, but she gently pushes back against his chest, keeping distance between them.

“I’m fine, Ser Jaime.”

“Nobody told me.” He doesn’t sound like he heard her, his eyes roving up and down and up and down her body like he’s scared to focus for even a moment and find she’s lost her own hand or something. “Pod and I had the younger boys out in the godswood practicing lunges and we just got back and one of those Unsullied freaks came up and said something I didn’t bloody understand and then their captain said you had—”

“Don’t call them freaks, they’re our allies—”

“You _collapsed!”_

The hysteria in his voice is what makes her decision for her.

She glances past him to Lady Sansa, who is all quiet dignity and elegance once again, standing silent by the railing on the walkway.

“My lady, will you excuse us for a moment?”

“I excuse you for the evening, Ser Brienne,” her lady replies, expressionless. “It is near to supper time and I plan to retire early to my sister’s company. I will be well-guarded.”

“Thank you, Lady Sansa.” Brienne bows even as she keeps one hand firmly on Jaime’s chest. Sansa acknowledges her with a nod.

“Until tomorrow morning, Ser Brienne.” And then she’s gone, sweeping down the walkway and through a door in a flash of red hair and grey furs.

Brienne looks back to Jaime, who has been standing rigidly in front of her since he first flew up the steps, his hand still tight around her upper arm and his heart hammering against the palm she has pressed to his breastbone. He’s staring at her shoulder, like it would be too much to have to look her in the eye, and she can see him biting his lower lip.

“Let’s go to our room,” she says softly, and when Jaime doesn’t respond she leans in and says right into his ear, “Take me away, Jaime.”

He does.

The minute the door closes behind them he’s all over her, but not like he normally is, not with a grasping hand that tears at her clothes and a fevered mouth that bites and kisses every newly revealed inch of skin. Right now he’s just kind of—touching, really, like a frightened animal trying to get its bearings. His hand and his stump run over her arms down to her hips and back up her ribs, pressing gently, and his eyes are finally on her face, searching and narrowing as though he expects to discover some terrible illness in a shadow under her chin or a loose lock of hair. He touches her chest, her stomach, her neck, her back, and only when his hand slows and stops on her cheek does she tell him, “I really am fine, Jaime.”

“You didn’t ask for me,” he murmurs, and she reaches up to grasp his wrist where it rests against her jaw. “You didn’t send someone to call for me, to tell me that—and if something had happened to you—”

“But nothing did,” she reminds him, pressing her thumb against the blue vein that sits beneath the ball of his hand. “I’m a knight, Jaime, I can take care of myself. You know that far better than most.”

“But if you’re sick—”

“I’m not, and you’re not a maester, you can’t help with that even if you want to,” she says sternly, because it really does matter that he knows, that he not let their marriage _(and soon their child)_ make him forget that she is Ser Brienne of Tarth, and while she may have learned to let him defend her from time to time when it costs her nothing, he is never her savior or her keeper or the holder of her deed, he is her partner and he must trust her to ask when she needs him and not demand access simply because he’s more afraid of a threat than he is confident in her judgement.

“I didn’t mean to—I was just fucking terrified, that’s all,” he says, looking a little ashamed now. She strokes his skin with her thumb. “The thought of you—vulnerable, here, without me to—I couldn’t stop Robert from taking her, I couldn’t save Joffrey or Tommen or Myrcella, my father died at the hands of the brother I freed into the Red Keep, I keep being gone when it counts and I never want that to happen with you.”

“I know,” she says, and she does. She doesn’t blame him, not after everything he’s lost. But his past is not her responsibility. Their future, his and hers, is.

His and hers and—

“The maester says I’m completely fine. He looked me over after I—fell,” she tells him, suddenly beset with nerves that circle and sting like bees. “As did his wife.”

“His wife?” Jaime frowns.

“Her name’s Gilly. The Wildling girl, with the little boy?”

“Ah, yes, the vacant one.”

“Jaime…”

“Aren’t maesters supposed to not have those? Wives, I mean.”

“Well this one does.”

“Greedy bastard.”

“ _Jaime_ ,” she admonishes again, rolling her eyes. He shrugs and tugs her close with his arms around her waist, catching her off-guard.

“I don’t resent him for it, he can have fifty wives if they’ll all help make sure you’re well.” He kisses her, soft and tender and a little apologetic _(probably for getting so worked up, in front of Lady Sansa no less)_ and she almost lets herself melt into him and get lost in the feeling of _safe safe safe_ that always comes with him—

No. She didn’t hesitate with Lady Sansa and she won’t hesitate with Jaime. 

“She’s no more a maester than you are. She’s a midwife.”

Brienne takes a deep breath, looing him square in the eyes and speaking before the warning shot she just fired can even make contact. “She says I have a child in me, Jaime.”

In retrospect, it will be pretty funny how long he just stands there like a stump and stares at her.

In the moment though, it’s an eternity of strange breathless fear, like she’s falling off a cliff, even though she knows he’ll be happy, he said he would be, didn’t he, isn’t he, oh Gods, what if he didn’t realize it could actually happen, what if he’s full of horror, what if the idea of her carrying his child is repulsive, _she’s_ repulsive, everything is—

For the second time today the world suddenly changes direction, except instead of waking up flat-out on the floor she’s lost her feet and everything is spinning, a blur of colors and shapes, an iron grip around her waist, and her legs swing wide and her ankle knocks against a chair and it should hurt but it doesn’t and there’s a sound somewhere in the whirl of everything, loud and bright and sharp like the ringing of bells, and then it all tips over again and she hits the bed with double the force because it’s not just her, it’s Jaime on top of her, and the sound is him and the weight on her is him and the feeling in her heart is him.

“Brienne,” he laughs, or cries, possibly both at the same time, but before she can work it out he’s kissing her again and there are tears on his face so he must be crying but she can taste the laughter in his mouth too, and his good hand has come up and buried itself in her hair, and his stump is sweeping up and down her side, restless, yearning to touch with fingers that are no longer there.

“You’re pleased?” she manages through the onslaught of kissing. He pulls back for a moment, his green eyes wild, and shakes his head disbelievingly.

“Ridiculous woman,” and now he’s kissing her chin, her neck, her collarbone—

He hits the sore spot from this morning and she cries out without thinking, jerking back from him. Immediately he pulls away, rising up onto his elbows, his ecstasy already merging into alarm.

“Oh Gods, Brienne, did I hurt you? Was I too rough? Should I—”

“Shut up,” she groans, pulling him back down. “You _wish_ you were strong enough to hurt me.”

“I don’t. And I am strong enough, I told you that before, but I don’t _wish_ to be. Why did you cry out?”

“When I fell, earlier, I—hit the table,” she mumbles, not wanting to relive that horrible horrible moment in the meeting earlier. Jaime’s mouth goes tight and upset as he climbs up onto his knees so that he’s on all fours over her where she lies stretched out on the bed.

“Is this why you fainted?” he asks, and she only stops herself from rolling her eyes by reminding herself that she had asked Gilly the same question less than an hour ago.

“Yes, but the midwife says it’s—”

“It’s normal,” he finishes, and she frowns up at him, confused. He blushes. “Cersei…when she was carrying Myrcella, she—once or twice—”

Jaime swallows and looks away. Brienne reaches for his face and pulls his eyes back, gentle but firm. They got Cersei out of the dark and into the light, where the fact of her couldn’t harm them. It’s hard for him to mention her still, especially memories, but Brienne is clear that she wants him to say it when he thinks it, if he wants. Nothing needs to stay locked inside. The cages should be opened so the monsters can flex and roar and eventually run away into the wilderness of the past where they belong.

“She said I’m all right,” Brienne says quietly. “And drinking more water and eating more meat might help.”

“Yes. Good.” He sits back so that he’s on his knees, straddling her upper thighs. He’s staring down at her belly, which still looks the same as it did yesterday and the day before.

“How long did she say…”

“Two months. Maybe a little more. She said the fainting doesn’t happen much after three.”

Jaime’s lip trembles, and he reverently lays his hand on her belly over her tunic.

Brienne snorts and shoves him in the shoulder.

“Oh Gods, don’t start doing that shit already.”

“What!” he exclaims indignantly. She points at him accusingly.

“Touching my belly like I’m some precious delicate maiden, handling me like cut glass. Just because I’m going to have a baby doesn’t mean I’m not still a bloody knight.”

“Indeed, my lady,” he says, his voice all warm and soft. “You will be the first knight to bear a child, and it will all be part of the legend that you are.”

She shoves him again.

“Ow! Stop!”

“I’m serious, Jaime,” she says fiercely. “Most women labor in marketplaces and farms and brothels while they grow their child, and none of them are called legends. Being a knight is about honor, that’s what knights are known for, and so will I be, so don’t single me out for doing the job pregnant, it makes me feel like—like the rest doesn’t matter!”

“Brienne,” and now instead of happy he sounds guilty, and she’s mad at herself, who scolds a man that’s trying to give compliments to the woman having his child? “I never meant to—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t act all soft about it,” she grumbles, and she grabs his hand and pulls it back to her stomach. “Touch if you want, it’s yours as much as mine.”

She said it so brusquely but it was evidently the right thing, because Jaime’s eyes suddenly well with tears and he’s leaning forward to kiss her, his hand staying trapped between them and flat on her stomach as he licks into her mouth, hot and lush and grateful. For a moment she thinks he’s going to try and fuck her right now, and the idea is more than agreeable so she reaches for his trouser laces, but just as she does his lips slide away from hers and he slips down to her left, lying on his side and sighing contentedly as he rubs her belly with the hand that’s still there, hasn’t left.

“Babies are soft,” he whispers into her ear, and she shivers. “You don’t have to be soft, but babies are. That’s one of the nice things about them. That and the way they smell.”

“What, like shit?”

“No,” he snorts, then amends, “Well, sometimes. But mostly it’s a lovely pure clean smell. I only got to hold Myrcella and Tommen, and each of them just once, but I remember the smell clear as day.”

“I’ve never held a baby, but when I’ve seen them they’ve smelled like shit or like sour milk. What if I just hate the way babies smell?” she muses, trying to summon a realistic laugh. The way Jaime’s hand stills where it’s rubbing her stomach tells her he didn’t buy it.

“…are you pleased, Brienne? About this?”

She doesn’t speak.

“Because—” He swallows. “Because if you don’t want it—”

“I _want_ it, of course I do, why does everyone keep asking me that like they think—”

“Because you sound upset when you say it out loud.”

“I don’t,” she lies, and Jaime’s hand slides further up her belly, resting in between her breasts.

_“A great beast of a woman.”_

_“Bet she’s got a cock down there instead of a cunt.”_

_“Imagine her poor old father, cursed with a daughter less like to produce children from her body than even a son might be.”_

_I don’t know how to do this. I don’t even know if I can._

“Brienne,” he says.

“What if it goes wrong?” she whispers. His thumb presses down hard, right near the tender spot underneath her left breast. “What if I die? Or do it badly? All I know is how to swing a sword and walk around on flat feet, that’s not enough, not for a knight who’s also a woman, only I never bothered to be a woman and now—”

She cries so rarely, the last time was when she woke up next to Jaime after their first night. But the tears come swiftly and suddenly now _(she can guess why, fuck this pregnancy already)_ and she scrapes them away with her sleeve even as he hushes her and pulls her up against his chest.

“Everything you have put your mind to, ser, you have achieved,” he says into her hair. “You are honor and passion incarnate, you do not give up. That’s all a babe needs, that and a wet tit. Your body will take care of that and I’ll be able to help with the rest.”

He’s talking up against the crown of her head, his breath warm on her scalp, and she has a million worst-case scenarios blowing through her head, all of which are her fault.

“Do you really want it, Brienne?”

It’s so quiet she wasn’t sure she heard at first, but when she pulls back after a moment of silence he’s looking down and she knows.

_Do I want it?_

She still hates the idea of _being pregnant_ , hanging up her breastplate and letting this little invader ravage her and steal her breath and her food and _change_ her from the inside out. She’s terrified at the thought of being responsible for a baby, she just barely managed to protect her lady and Winterfell as it was and all the men who laughed at her before and went silent after the Long Night will laugh even harder if they see her carting around an infant along with her armor. And she struggles to imagine her life with a child between her and Jaime, demanding attention and time and energy, changing her even more from the outside.

“It doesn’t…feel like mine yet. Like I’m going to have it at all,” she tells Jaime. He nods and swallows. She can see his green eyes shining.

“That will come,” he says.

“And if it doesn’t?”

He smiles wryly. “You learned to like _me_ , and we started out on much worse terms. A babe should be already ahead of the curve.”

“I’m serious Jaime.”

The smile fades and he shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I think it will come. I hope it will.”

“Maybe I’m made wrong. Maybe I’m not enough of a woman to feel it.”

“Would you stop that? You’re enough of a woman to take my heart and my cock, you’re enough of a woman to outfight every many in Westeros, you’re enough of a woman to do anything you care to do. This will be no different.”

Brienne closes her eyes. She never expected to have to puzzle through anything like this, especially not with the world-famed Lannister Lion and Kingslayer, lying beside her in a Northern bed. But as frightening and alien as it seems, she knows Jaime, and she knows that he has a reason to be so excited about the idea of having children, and if he can find something—

One word flashes across her brain, accompanied by images of picnics with her father and Lady Sansa and Lady Arya exchanging secret smiles and Jaime and Tyrion bickering and Jaime looking at her, wanting her, loving her.

_“Family.”_

_I want that. I can start there._

She sighs and shrugs and starts trying to kick off her boots without sitting up. Jaime waits amiably while she struggles and finally succeeds, each boot falling with a clunk to the floor. Then she starts trying to remove his boots, still using only her own feet. They end up wrestling a little bit, Brienne accusing him of sabotage and Jaime accusing her of lackluster energy. Eventually his boots make it off too, and just as the second disappears over the edge of the bed Brienne realizes she’s absolutely fucking starving.

“I’m absolutely fucking starving.”

“Of course you are!” he exclaims without a hint of sarcasm, leaping off the bed like he’s on springs. “I’ll run down to the main hall and grab some food, bring it back here, don’t you even move a mu—”

“Jaime.”

He stops and turns to her, already holding one discarded boot in his hand.

“I think I want it.”

“What, venison? That’s what they’re serving tonight, I can get as much as you want.”

“No, you imbecile, a baby. I think I want it, if it’s with you.”

He drops the boot, comes to the bed and leans down and kisses her, his breath rushing into her throat, and it feels like there _will_ be fucking tonight, maybe after she eats _(and pisses, AGAIN)_. She runs her fingers through his hair and smiles as he pulls away but not before ducking down to drop a kiss onto her belly.

“Ugh, I told you, don’t start.”

“You may not be soft, Ser Brienne, but babies and I are.”

He yanks on his boots one at a time _(another thing he’s learned to do expertly one-handed),_ smiling at her thoughtfully as he does so. It’s sweet and stupid and makes her tingle.

“What are you smiling about, fool?”

Jaime gets to his feet and takes her hand, glancing down at her stomach as he does. He’s got a funny look in his eyes.

“I’m just imagining the day you start to teach our son or daughter to fight.”

He kisses her hand, drop it, winks at her, and leaves the room.

For the first time since Gilly laid a hand on her breast and asked if it was sore, Brienne wonders if this may be a good thing for herself as well as for him.


	6. Seven Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys I was going for fic trope bingo. I told you, and you didn't believe. Well, here we are. Satisfied? WANT TO JUDGE ME NOW?
> 
> (i'm judging me, sorry to yell I'm tired and my apartment is full of fruit flies)
> 
> Anyways, I think I've finally figured out how long this fic will be and have the upcoming last chapter/epilogue, though I reserve the right to expand it by a chapter or so later on because I'm Darth Vader and this is my Death Star, fool. There may be angst ahead, but fear not, my friends--this is the Good Ship OathFluff, and it will not let you stay in any dark (or porn-free) place for long. Plus, I will almost definitely drop in to write for this verse from time to time. The plot bunnies breed like real bunnies, only with more words and emotional catharsis.
> 
> As always, I did as much research as I could but an apology for all the things I don't know about pregnancy, medieval medicine and midwifery, metallurgy, Game of Thrones canon specifics, and heterosexual sex positions (I know stuff about those I just chose to walk a different path some time ago and memory fades in the Lesbian Zone).
> 
> Finally, I think we can all agree that, with much room to switch and have fun, our darling Jaime is a bottom. AND HE IS SO GOOD AT IT.

**113 Days**

* * *

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as Brienne, a maester, a midwife, and common sense can be.”

“So yesterday, during the counsel—”

“It only happens in the first couple months, at least that’s what they said. She’ll be eating steak every night from now on, if I have anything to say about it.”

“And otherwise she’s well?”

“She’s Brienne.”

Tyrion rolls his eyes but it’s all affection, all joy, and Jaime is currently walking on air and plans to do so for the next couple days at least and for the first time in his life he doesn’t have to hide it, not from anyone but particularly not from his baby brother.

“Well then, there’s only one thing for it.” Tyrion hops decisively off of his chair and shuffles to the other side of his tiny office, where he pours himself and Jaime two very generous cups of mead _(Jaime hates mead but the wine is running low so everyone’s drinking it these days, he thinks it tastes like horse piss, and HE WOULD KNOW)_.

“I know you’d prefer Dornish,” Tyrion says as he hands over the cup, “but we must make do with what we’ve got in such times.”

“For Brienne I’d drink boiling oil,” Jaime says, and Tyrion snorts, shaking his head.

“I always forget what a crazed romantic you are. That’s a lie, I never forget, not the way you moon over her day after day like a lovesick squire, but it bears repeating in the moment.” Tyrion raises his cup. “To Ser Brienne of Tarth, the child inside her, and an easy confinement for both.”

Even as he clinks his cup against Tyrion’s, Jaime’s smile fades. His brother clocks it and swallows his mouthful of mead before putting a firm hand on Jaime’s arm.

“It doesn’t do to be morose so early on.”

“You don’t know,” Jaime tells him bluntly.

“I killed my own mother in the birthing bed,” Tyrion says with what was probably meant to be a wry smile and not a grimace. “I think I know well enough.”

“You’ve never had to fear it from outside, you’ve never been there and _seen._ ”

“Neither have you.”

“I was there when Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen were born.”

Tyrion’s eyes widen. “You were where? Not—you didn’t—”

Jaime nods, eyes on the mead in his cup. “I was by the birthing bed, every time. I held her hand, let her scratch at me, put her head in my lap. She screamed until her voice broke, always, even with Myrcella who came so easy, she still screamed the whole time, until they were out of her. Robert may have held them but I _saw_ them, I felt them breathe in the world for the first time.”

“Jaime…”

Jaime hears Tyrion take another sip, but he can’t look up, not now, not when his brother’s voice has that…that edge to it, the one he’s so used to from the rest of the world, the tinge of disgust and horror and _wrong, sisterfucker, bedding your own blood._ Tyrion has never condemned Jaime for it but he doesn’t understand, no one understands, not even Brienne, not even Jaime himself sometimes, and it’s rare but every once in a while Tyrion can’t pretend not to feel just like everyone else.

_What if you had been the one she wanted, dear brother, and I the monster? Could you have withstood her? Do you ever ask yourself?_

“You never told me you were there,” Tyrion says, low, dull.

“I never told you most things. You just found them out.”

Tyrion sighs. “And I’ve paid dearly for it, believe me.”

Aside from Brienne, Jaime has probably been more open with Tyrion about his lifelong relationship with Cersei than anybody else. But it never really gets easier. Maybe it’s because, whatever hatreds and griefs exist between Cersei and Tyrion, he is still her brother as much as she is his sister, they grew up together alongside Jaime, under the eye of the same father, and in a strange way Tyron is the only one who knows both of them as they truly are, maybe not as they know each other but as those who are there to see the cut are the only ones who can really know the scars.

Tyrion always knew who the father of Cersei’s children was. Cersei had told Jaime once, after Joffrey had died and Tyrion was in chains below the Red Keep, that he’d tried to “taunt” her about it once, shame her, baited her for gory details. If Jaime knew both his brother and his sister—and he may be the stupidest Lannister but he does know some things—it might have been the closest Tyrion ever came to lending Cersei some comfort about the situation, giving her a chance to worry out loud without fear of punishment. And in fact that may have played a role in how she’d punished _him_ , in the end, hell-bent on murdering the only person besides Jaime who she’d ever let see the true depths of her helpless rage and guilt.

_We are so old, Cersei and I, we have lived so many lives and burned them all to the ground. What right do I have to ask for anything more?_

“I mean…I hate to say it, brother, but I think I can guess where _those_ rumors started,” Tyrion says finally, breaking the silence that’s settled heavily over them both. Jaime takes a swallow of mead and nearly gags.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter. It matters to the memory of your three children.”

Jaime hears a hoarseness in Tyrion’s words and remembers how he used to chase his niece and nephews around in the garden, make them cunning little stick-dolls, tease them with riddles and word games. Even Joffrey had loved him once, for a very brief time, before Cersei’s hackles went up and she’d dragged him back to her side.

“Cersei is not as strong as Brienne, not half as strong, and she survived three births,” Tyrion says, as though he’s trying to convince himself as much as Jaime. “You don’t need to worr—”

“I will worry until the child is in my arms and Brienne is leading armies again, and after that I’ll still fucking worry,” Jaime grits out, because it’s the truth, a man who deserves no second chances knows how easily and quickly they can crumble back into dust.

“Then worry, like any good husband and father, but don’t put the babe before the labor, so to speak.” Tyrion touches his arm again and Jaime finally looks up to see his brother smiling at him, eyes wet. “Jaime, she’s magnificent, and she loves you. Now she’s going to give you a child. That is the truth now, as it stands, and you dishonor it if you turn your back and live in the fantasy of fear.”

Jaime snorts, wipes his own tears away, and take another sip of the awful fucking mead. “You’re too smart for your own good, little brother.”

“Big brother, tell me something I don’t know.”

_Second changes come wrapped in war and betrayal and choices, always choices, and if you wait too long they run away._

**137 Days**

* * *

She insists on waiting another couple weeks before telling anyone else.

“Gilly says it’s bad luck to announce before the third month is over,” she tells him, and when Jaime asks what the hell Gilly knows Brienne puffs up and says, “She’s been delivering babies and caring for pregnant women since she was old enough to walk, _and_ she’s married to a maester, _and_ she’s a woman herself, unlike you, so—”

Jaime learns very quickly not to question Gilly.

But he does get to be there when Brienne tells Podrick, and that’s worth the wait. Watching from across the courtyard as she stammers and coughs and finally mumbles something to the eager young squire, Jaime braces himself for the explosion. He’s not disappointed: Podrick’s mouth drops open, his eyes are the size of cartwheels, he’s gulping and wringing his hands and—oh, well, now he’s crying, grinning like an idiot through his tears. That's nice.

Jaime is so grateful to that boy for everything he’s done for Brienne but being happy for her like this, about this, grabbing her hand and squeezing it even while she turns bright red and looks off over his shoulder, immediately accepting that his knight and his lady and his hero can also be a mother and herself, all at the same time—

Well, Jaime is pretty sure Brienne wants to be the one to knight Pod, and he would never get in the way of that, but damn if he isn’t tempted.

Word spreads quickly after that, and for the first time since news of their bedding swept across the castle, Jaime again finds himself the subject of countless stares and whispers. Theirs is far from the first pregnancy at Winterfell—it’s been five months since winter came and everyone’s been fucking like crazy just to have something to do, maybe one out of every four women around the castle is starting to show a little by now—but just like last time, people seem to find something specifically intriguing about him and Brienne. The tenor of the attention is much less aggressive, at least: he gets a lot of smiles and nods, mostly from other women and some men who have proven themselves not to be twats, and from the Unsullied and Dothraki still at Winterfell he receives a wide variety of solemn salutes and leery giggles complete with foreign muttering and gestures that _(he hopes)_ are meant to represent a pregnant belly.

Still, he really didn’t expect to be approached and congratulated by the commander of the Unsullied himself. He’s not even sure the man knows his name.

“Ser Brienne is a great warrior,” says the Essosi soldier in his gravelly, emotionless voice. “It is good she has a child. Your people need more like her.”

“Thank you, I think so too,” Jaime says, a little bewildered. They’ve spoken briefly at counsels or meetings or sometimes at long dinners, but in general he knows the man is dead loyal to Daenerys and her dislike of Jaime is no secret. Grey Worm nods once, seems about to say something else, thinks better of it, and then pivots on the spot and silently stalks off to the woman Jaime is pretty sure he’s somehow bonded to _(can the Unsullied get married? What for?)_ , the right hand of the Dragon Queen, who gives Jaime a small but genuine smile and nods slowly. He nods back.

Someone else approaches him a little later, and with far less subtlety. The giant fucking Wildling has been in and out of Winterfell these last few months, out on hunting parties with his people or staying in their little shelters outside the walls of the castle, but when Jaime hears “oy, fancy fucker!” ring out across the courtyard, he doesn’t need to smell wet fur or spy red hair to know who it is.

“I heard you got a child in her,” growls the giant fucking Wildling as he strides up to Jaime, taking no notice of the boys and girls drilling with their wooden swords at Jaime’s command. “Is it true?”

Jaime toys briefly with the idea of telling him it’s none of his business, but his gloating side shuts that down real fast.

“It’s very true,” he replies, and the giant fucking Wildling—

Starts laughing.

“To be honest with you, southern boy, I didn’t think you had enough wick in the candle!” he guffaws, slapping Jaime on the shoulder hard enough to make his teeth rattle. “But a woman like that doesn’t make a baby unless she’s been properly fucked, so you must be better at gettin’ it in than you look!”

Jaime doesn’t wear his golden hand anymore and the hook Gendry offered to make him won’t be done until the next full moon, but even though his options are limited he’s still pretty sure he can find a way to beat the shit out of the giant fucking Wildling, if he tries.

But even as he shifts his weight and tries to decide between a punch with his weaker hand and an unsportmanslike knee to the crotch, the giant fucking Wildling sobers up and puts a hand back on his shoulder with a little less force this time.

“I’m glad,” he grunts, beady blue eyes beaming right into Jaime’s. “None of these southern fucks know what she is. They don’t see her like we do. It pains me not to be with her but it would pain me more to see a wonder like her go to waste.”

Jaime has no fucking clue how to react to this collection of statements, so he just nods and also readies his hand for punching.

“You’re a lucky man,” the giant fucking Wildling says. “She’ll give you children the size of a direwolf and twice as vicious in battle. Maybe one of them will be kissed by fire, huh? A little something to remember me by!”

“We can only hope,” Jaime says through clenched teeth. The giant fucking Wildling booms out another laugh and then he _ruffles Jaime’s hair,_ like an indulgent uncle at a Highgarden tea party, and before Jaime can recover from that enough to get his hand on a sword not made of wood that giant fucking Wildling is sauntering away, still laughing, and Podrick is giving Jaime a weird look, and in the end his only recourse is to beat the shit out of a training dummy under the pretense of demonstrating a close-quarters downhill counterattack.

Dinner is raucous that night. Lady Sansa and her brother are not there, and neither are Tyrion and the Dragon Queen, most likely dining together privately, so Brienne sits beside him instead of at the head table. He can tell before she even meets his eye that she’s had the same kind of day he has, except unlike him she doesn’t glow and revel in the acknowledgement that _they’re going to be parents_ , no, she wants people to shut up about it and call her “Ser,” so as they eat she glares at anyone who brings up the babe and tonight that’s pretty much everyone.

“Having your first child is like learning to sail,” Davos tells them in his earnest way. “You spend all your time worrying about tipping over and drowning, only to realize the whole damn boat’s on fire and sharks ate your sail. There’s no preparing, none.”

“Thanks, we’ll remember that,” Jaime replies, squeezing Brienne’s thigh beneath the table. She huffs out a breath through her nose and nods curtly, using bread to sop up the last of the stew on her plate.

“More, ser?” Podrick pipes up, grabbing her plate and running to refill it before she even answers. Jaime doesn’t know exactly what goes into squiring for a pregnant woman, and he doubts Pod does either, but so far he seems to be doing a bang-up job.

“How’re you gonna fight when you’re big as a keep?” the Hound asks through a mouthful of chicken. Brienne levels an unimpressed gaze at him.

“Still better than you, Clegane.”

“Bullshit. You’ll take one swing and topple over like a fat lord on skinny legs.”

Jaime opens his mouth to say something about duels and ears and learning your lesson, but before he can Brienne says loudly, “I could be a week from the birthing bed and still carve you like a goose.”

“You like to fuckin’ think that, wouldn’t you?” he growls. “Put your money where your mouth is when the time comes, we’ll see who carves who.”

“Agreed,” Brienne replies fiercely, and they shake hands.

“You sure that’s wise?” Jaime asks in what he feels is a very casual tone. Brienne rounds on him, eyes flashing.

“Would you bet against me, ser?”

From across the table, Davos smirks just a little bit. _Amateur mistake._

“Not if I wanted to keep my head, I wouldn’t. I merely meant—” Her eyes narrow and he decides not to die on this hill. “Never mind.”

Jaime is saved from further self-endangerment when Pod returns with a full plate of food, which Brienne proceeds to inhale like a starved prisoner. Podrick takes his seat, watching his knight eat with a worshipful gaze.

“What’re you hoping for, boy or girl?” Davos asks, apparently still eager to pass on parenting advice. “Boys carry harder but come easier, at least for my wife they did. Girls never sleep. My wife found both nursed well enough, though boys—”

“So how goes it with you, Pod?” Jaime breaks in, trying his very best to turn the topic of conversation to something that won’t end with Brienne breaking their friend Davos’s jaw.

“Me?” Podrick blinks as he’s jolted out of his Brienne-appreciation reverie.

“You!” insists Jaime. “It’s nigh on five months we’ve been here, tending our fields and our fires and doing fuck-all under ten feet of snow. Young man like you, hero of the Long Night, and skilled with all sorts of sword, according to Tyrion—there must be at least one woman who’s proved herself worthy of the great Podrick Payne’s attentions.”

At the same time that Podrick coughs and appears to choke on his tongue, Jaime’s foot is flattened with incredible force and accuracy by a large bootheel. He yelps and whirls to Brienne, who looks innocently back as she stuffs a forkful of potatoes in her mouth. The Hound rolls his eyes and takes a big drink of ale.

“Just ‘cause you two fuck away the day doesn’t mean we all do. Boy’s probably too tired to strip his own bark in the evening. That’s how to avoid a babe, lazy bastards.”

At this point Pod is an interesting purple color, Davos has taken the hint and is staring down at his own food, and Brienne is still calmly eating with her eyes on Jaime, that bootheel pressing ever so lightly into the still-throbbing tips of his toes.

So he decides to drop it. For now.

**168 Days**

* * *

It’s not supposed to start this late.

 _The first three months_ , Gilly had told them, _and after that it’s mostly just a matter of getting bigger, at least unless something goes wrong, but I’m sure it won’t._

It has.

Counting backwards with a little guesswork, it’s a couple weeks into her fourth month when Brienne starts getting sick to her stomach. She’s had a few waves of nausea before this, usually in the morning or just before dinner, but never enough to keep her off her feet or even slow her down. She even laughed about it to Jaime, saying it was the strangest feeling of being seasick on solid land.

But this is different. This is from the moment she wakes up to the moment she finally, tortuously gets to sleep, never-ending, only receding and advancing like an indecisive infantry line. Jaime feels like he’s having a bad dream, maybe a repeat of a different one where he’s seventeen, back in the Throne Room, and the Mad King is laughing and wildfire is licking bright green up the walls and he’s stuck in one spot, he can’t run, he can’t move—only now he’s stuck here next to Brienne, rubbing her back as she heaves into a clean chamberpot, running a cloth across her sweaty forehead, refilling the water flagon every chance he gets, doing everything he can to help and it’s nothing, nothing, she’s in agony and he can’t move to make it stop.

It feels like a divine joke of some kind, a bait-and-switch prank, because aside from the one time she fainted and a little bad heartburn Brienne’s had a wonderfully easy time of it thus far. He knows how much she dreads the changes and how they might slow her down, weaken her, but miraculously it all seems to be going fine. Her stomach and breasts have already started to swell _(which drives him absolutely mad, he can’t keep his hands off her, everything softer and heavier and yet still Brienne, still his, still_ theirs) but she hasn’t suddenly gone frail or clumsy like she might have feared, and her appetite is more than healthy. She guards her lady by day, makes love to her husband by night, and the growing babe stays respectfully in its place.

Until now.

The first day of it isn’t so bad. She vomits once in the morning and shakes it off, rolling her eyes and pushing him affectionately back when he offers her a cup of soothing black cherry tea to settle her stomach. But when he sees her that evening she doesn’t look good, her skin a little grey and clammy and her jaw tight, like she’s tensing in anticipation of some blow. At dinner she sits up at the head table with Lady Sansa, eats nothing, and finally leaves early, so that when he realizes she’s gone and goes to look for her back in their chamber he finds her bent over the chamberpot, heaving and gagging, her cloak haphazardly flung across the floor. He holds her, pets her, brings her some water, and finally gets her into bed, going to find a spare chamberpot _(just in case)_ before he crawls in beside her and falls asleep with his good hand running gently up and down her back.

Two days later, it’s gotten so bad she can barely stand, her body bending and curling against her will as it shudders with nausea. And she tries to ignore it, stubborn willful unstoppable thing, tries to strap on Oathkeeper and go meet her lady for the day, but one look at her pasty, sweat-slick face and the way her hands are trembling and Jaime makes up his mind. When she inevitably has to stop trying to leave the room and heave into the chamberpot again, he does the unthinkable and runs out of the room, leaving her there, his heart pounding, as he sprints full-tilt through the castle to the maester’s quarters, where he finds a sleepy Samwell Tarly and Gilly feeding their newborn.

“She needs you,” he gasps, not out of breath so much as filled with the terror of being apart from her when she needs him too, even to get help, _she needs him and he’s not there_ , but thank the Gods for Gilly, who simply nods and nestles her baby into a sling with impressive skill—the little boy’s mouth never even leaves her nipple as she shifts him up and back and wraps him close against her—and then follows Jaime back to Brienne, moving as fast as she can and nowhere near as fast as Jaime would want.

They find Brienne exactly where Jaime left her, slumped over the chamberpot, saliva dripping from her mouth as she tries and fails to retch something out of her empty stomach. Gilly calmly gets on her knees beside Brienne and pushes her hair back with one gentle hand.

“Is it pain? Or just the sick feeling?” she asks. Brienne gulps, heaves again, shakes her head.

“N-no pain…just…Oh Gods… _sick…”_

“What are you eating?”

“Nothing,” Jaime answers for her, and he doesn’t care that Brienne grunts angrily and raises her head to glare at him, let her be pissed about whatever she wants, just as long as she gets better. “She hasn’t been able to eat anything solid for two days.”

“Huh,” Gilly says.

“ _Two days_ ,” Jaime repeats.

“Huh,” Gilly says again.

“Doesn’t that sound dangerous?!” he asks, not caring how high his voice has gone, because why isn’t this idiot Wildling woman taking it seriously, Brienne is _sick—_

“Yes but we can fix it,” Gilly replies, even as she gets to her feet and switches her son from one breast to the other. “I’ll go down to the kitchens and then come right back.”

“What? Why?” Brienne croaks. Jaime drops to his knees and rubs her back, but she flinches away from him, curling over the chamberpot.

“I just need a couple things for the tonic,” Gilly tells her, like they’re having a normal, non-emergency conversation on any old day about any old thing. “We used to make it all the time for the sick feeling. There’s vinegar and some herbs and—”

“I don’t need a tonic.” Brienne sounds like shit, but even so Jaime can hear the iron in her voice. His own stomach twists.

“It’s fine, really,” Gilly insists. “I drank it, so did my sisters. Sometimes babes can take you by surprise with the changes, especially if they go slow in the beginning. This should help you feel much—”

“ _No. Tonic,”_ Brienne hisses, and immediately heaves again, her head dropping forward. Jaime fights the panic biting at his heels and gently puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Brienne, she’s just trying to—”

“I don’t need it!”

The chamberpot clatters and Jaime falls back and Brienne is on her feet, unsteady and weak but determination wound tightly in every joint. She grabs for her cloak and fastens it on, breathing deep and sharp through her nose, shaking all over even as she pulls the swordbelt low around her hips and buckles it.

“I must attend Lady Sansa now,” she says stiffly, and Jaime can hear the urge to retch lurking in the tremor in her voice. “Thank you for your help, Lady Gilly.”

And with that she’s gone.

Jaime’s first instinct is to run after her and get her back in the room and lying down, physically drag her if he has to—but he knows that’s folly, especially since whatever’s gotten into her clearly involves more than a little hostility towards him. Instead, when Gilly turns to him with a questioning frown, he takes a deep breath and says, “How long will it take to make the tonic?”

“Not long. Probably half an hour.”

“If you’d be so kind, brew it and bring it to me when it’s ready. Not to Ser Brienne, you understand, but to me.”

“All right, ser,” she says uncertainly. Jaime gets to his feet, trying not to look at the baby’s little hands flexing open and closed against his mother’s chest. He’s got half an hour to figure out what’s going on with Brienne and how to pause it long enough to get that tonic into her.

He fails on both counts. She avoids him all day and gets back to their room late, looking terrible, barely getting her boots off before she collapses into bed with her back to him.

The silent treatment doesn’t last long, though, not when he wakes a couple hours later to find her heaving again, the chamberpot clutched against her chest, her skin the color of wet granite.

“She said it will help,” he whispers as she moans and shudders against his chest. The chamberpot smells like bile and sweat, and it’s starting to make _him_ feel a bit ill. “I have it over on the dresser, just let me—”

“My mother took it.” Brienne’s voice is hoarse and thin, and her fingers tighten around his stump. “She was—during her last p-pregnancy, she was sick, always sick, couldn’t—and the maesters gave her t-tonics and medicine and potions, and they made her worse. She died in the bed because she was so weak, they made it _worse._ ”

“Brienne,” he starts, and then can’t think of what to say, except to beg her not to sacrifice herself and their child to a tragedy from long ago. He remembers the death of his own mother, remembers the powerlessness and the fury and the ache of injustice, how as a child he would have done anything to get his mother back—but he never imagined himself dying the same way, never dreamt it was _his_ body split open and bleeding out in the comfy bed that still smelled the way it did when they cuddled up together on lazy mornings. Brienne has feared this, not just now but before, she’s had those dreams, and now that they’re coming true she’s determined to fight them any way she knows how—even if it kills her.

“I can do it,” she promises, panting heavily as she’s hit by another wave of sickness. “I just—no potions, nothing, they’ll hurt us.”

“ _This_ is hurting you,” he tells her, even as he thinks _us, does she mean US, does she mean the babe, my Gods, I couldn’t love her more and I can’t lose her now._

The next day is the same. This time Jaime runs and fetches Gilly _and_ Sam, in the hopes that a real maester will make her see sense. Sam tells her yes, she _must_ drink the tonic, it’s a simple solution to a problem that could become far more serious if they don’t do something, and Brienne’s response is to kick over the chamber pot and storm out again, nearly doubled-over, clutching her poor stomach.

“She’s afraid of—of getting worse,” Jaime tries to explain through his own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Sam exchanges a worried look with Gilly.

“Well she’s _already_ getting worse,” he tells Jaime. “She’s dehydrated and in this condition I doubt she’s eaten enough, if anything at all. There’ll be another collapse coming, or much worse, if we can’t get her insides settled and give the child the sustenance it needs.”

_What about the sustenance SHE needs? Is this baby killing its mother?_

Jaime’s losing his mind.

And no, it’s not about him right now, _this is not about him_ , but in another way it very much is about him, because Brienne may be the one going through all this but he’s the one who has to stand there next to her and watch it happen and not be able to do a damn thing except—

Except nothing. There’s nothing he can do. There never is.

And then everything comes to a head the morning of the fifth day.

Jaime hasn’t slept because Brienne hasn’t slept because she’s up all night moaning and sweating and trying to vomit up an empty stomach, and her skin is baggy on her face like a dead man’s and her hands shake violently and she walks at a slow shuffle that hurts to watch. When he tries to mention the tonic she snarls at him and drags herself off to Lady Sansa, who must see this herself, must know something’s not right, but she trusts Brienne with her life, trusts her to care for herself, and that’s the problem, because Brienne would gladly drink or save or kill anything for Sansa but this isn’t hurting _Sansa_ , so she digs her heels in and stands beside her lady as though nothing is wrong.

Jaime fights with himself over whether or not to grab her and hold her to the floor and _make_ her take the tonic, but he can’t. For one thing, he physically might not be able to manage it, and for another, the one thing he will never do to Brienne is take her body against her will, in any way, not after what she’s been through. Not even to save her from herself.

So he gets dressed and goes to the training yard, his head throbbing, fear and anxiety prickling painfully under his skin. Podrick is there, along with his other pupils, and the squire can immediately see that something’s wrong _(not to mention he’s noticed Brienne has skipped dinner the last three nights)_ but he doesn’t push Jaime, just lines up to train along with the others. Jaime runs them through drills and one-on-one exercises, trying to lose himself in the wonderfully sterile laws of regulated combat.

And then he sees her.

Lady Sansa is away at the other end of the yard, speaking quietly to her sister and Tyrion, of all people. Behind her stands Brienne, looking worse than ever, sagging beneath the weight of her cloak and sword. As Jaime watches over the heads of his fighting students, she sways on the spot and claps a hand over her mouth to hide another retch. It’s like watching a sick pantomime from the back seats and wanting to go onstage and yell at the actors and call them out for how bad and stupid this whole thing is, how poorly they’re performing at their jobs, only you can’t do that—

But Jaime can, and he does. One second he’s standing beside Podrick watching two boys demonstrate counter-ripostes, the next his feet are carrying him over to the red-haired Lady of Winterfell and her wolf sister and his dwarf brother and his stubborn fucking bull of a wife, and without regard for their conversation he steps right up and says, “Lady Sansa?”

“Oh—Ser Jaime,” she says with surprise, even as Tyrion frowns at his brother’s odd behavior and Brienne’s eyes widen in alarm. “We did not see you.”

“I do apologize. Lord Tyrion. Lady Arya. Ser Brienne,” he says, nodding to each in sequences, and then once he’s done he looks Sansa right in the eye and says, “Tell her to take it.”

“Take what?” Arya pipes up, just as Brienne says, “ _Jaime”_ sharply, but he doesn’t care, not now.

“The tonic the midwife gave her,” he says, only to Sansa, directly to Sansa. “She won’t listen to me, she won’t listen to the maester, but she swore her bloody sword to you so if you tell her to take it she’ll _have_ to—”

“Ser Jaime!” Brienne breaks in furiously, and even ragged and weak as her voice is she speaks loud enough that heads turn all over the courtyard, Podrick is looking over at them, he didn’t mean to do this so publicly but he’s desperate and it’s for her, it’s for _her._

Lady Sansa’s cool gaze is trained on him, even though he can see a tinge of uncertainty in that icy face. “Ser Brienne does not need to be ordered about like a child—”

“Ser Brienne is barely able to stand and hasn’t kept down solid food in five days,” he says, plowing over her, “so by all means, Lady Sansa, if you want to lose your sworn shield and her unborn babe to slow starvation then go about your business as you were, but—”

“ _Enough!”_ Brienne shrieks, and he’s never heard her sound like that before, not to him, and it does actually shut him up long enough to look her in the eye and see the bald fear there, terror and rage and despair, like a wounded animal, _Brienne, I’m sorry, I don’t want you to die either—_

“Is this true, Ser Brienne?”

Sansa’s voice is still soft and measured, but there’s a sharpness to it, a snap of authority. Arya and Tyrion are goggling at the three of them as Jaime feels a flash of hope in his chest and sees Brienne flinch as she turns to her lady, her sallow cheeks pinking with embarrassment.

“I—that—yes, my lady.”

Even now, she can’t lie, not to the one she’s loyal to. Sansa’s eyes narrow and she looks Brienne up and down, taking in her warrior’s deterioration. Jaime notices her fingers twitch slightly.

“And the midwife says she can treat your condition?”

“She said it’s always worked before,” Jaime says, and sharp as a knife he feels Brienne’s eyes cut through him, Arya and Tyrion’s too, but Sansa never wavers.

“Then if you would serve me, Brienne of Tarth, I command you to do as the maester and the midwife say, whether it be taking tonic or resting when rest is needed. Will you obey?”

Brienne is looking back at her lady now, and Jaime can see the strain she’s under. Loyal Brienne, oathkeeper, safeguard, honorable and trustworthy—and Sansa stares back, merciless, all icy love and cold dignity. The whole courtyard is eerily silent around them.

“Yes, my lady,” Brienne says finally. A long pause, and then Sansa raises an eyebrow.

“ _Now_ , Ser Brienne.”

Jaime can almost hear Brienne’s teeth grinding as she bows stiffly, turns on her heel, and strides off as brusquely as someone weakened by hunger and thirst and crippled by nausea can. She doesn’t look back once before she disappears into the western passages, heading towards their room.

Relief floods through Jaime like a wave of warmth, lighting him up, easing the exhaustion in his bones and the tension in her chest. He can’t stop himself from beaming at Lady Sansa, even as she fixes him with a wolfish stare and lifts her chin.

“If you ever speak to me or any of my house that way again, Ser Jaime, I will have you put in the stocks. That is, if I am feeling generous.”

“I understand, my lady, and I apologize,” Jaime replies, trying to sound contrite. But the lift of the burden from his shoulders loosens his tongue and pulls the truth to its tip. “But there’s nothing I won’t do once or twice or a thousand times to keep Ser Brienne safe.”

For a moment, Jaime wonders if he’s finally pushed his luck with the Starks too far.

Then a flicker of a smile crosses Sansa’s face, so brief he’s not sure he didn’t imagine it, and she turns and nods to Arya. “Will you come with me?”

“I will.” Arya’s face is blank as she glances at Jaime and then at Tyrion. “Your brother knows when to speak, but not when to stop.”

“It’s a work in progress,” says Tyrion, and the Stark girls move away from him as one, two lithe shadows making their way across the courtyard.

The minute they turn the corner around the tower and are lost from view, Tyrion punches Jaime right in the knee.

“Ow!”

“What in seven hells did you think you were doing!” he demands, fists clenched. “You could have—to speak like that—you’re lucky you still have your head attached to your shoulders!”

“Oh don’t be dramatic,” Jaime replies, and he dodges when Tyrion tries to punch him again.

He doesn’t see her for the rest of the day. He does go to Gilly and Sam, though, and asks if Brienne has been to see them. Sam hems and haws and finally Gilly says, “You should ask her that.”

“I would, but I don’t think she’d tell me. I just want to know if she’s better.”

“Ser Jaime—” Sam begins, but Gilly cuts him off.

“She’s better. But she’s upset. So don’t worry, but leave her be, all right?”

Jaime feels like an invisible suit of armor just vanished and he’s floating, thirty pounds lighter.

That feeling lasts all night, even when he doesn’t see her at dinner, even when people snicker about the outburst in the courtyard, even when Podrick glares at him and mutters, “Ser Brienne can take care of herself,” it doesn’t matter if any of them understand or know what’s really going on because she’s _better_.

And then it’s later, and later, and she hasn’t come back to their room yet, and Jaime’s just about to feel that invisible armor settle back over him when the door swings open and she’s there, tall and hearty and _Brienne._

She looks _so_ much better. There’s still bags under her eyes, her color isn’t great, but she’s standing solid on her own two feet and her hands are steady. She must have eaten, must have kept her food and water down, and just the thought of that makes him want to sing. Even her eyes are clearer, piercing him now as they are, pinning him to the headboard of the bed.

She closes the door behind her and takes off her swordbelt, hanging it in its place on the nearby wall. Her gaze stays fixed on him as she goes to the fire _(still burning healthy and bright, he keeps it warm in here for her, he has for months)_ and stands beside it, warming her hands.

“You look wonderful,” he says.

She doesn’t reply.

“I’m sorry.”

No reply.

“No, I’m not sorry. I would do it again, as many times as I had to. You were going to lose the babe, Brienne, you might have died. I won’t apologize for fighting for you, even if I had to fight you.”

“You never apologize, do you?” she says, and her voice is still hoarse, torn up by the acid from her stomach over the last few days. “Not to the Starks, not to your brother, not to me.”

“Not for what I don’t regret, no.” He wants to get up and hold her, he wants to lay his good hand on her stomach and feel that funny taut sponginess where the baby is stretching her slightly, he wants to make her feel safe.

_She was terrified earlier and you made it worse. Helped her but hurt her. Always the way with you, Jaime._

“You used Lady Sansa against me,” she whispers. Her eyes are bright, wet, but she does not waver in her words. “You spoke to her about me, as though I weren’t even there. You treated me like your dog, Jaime, like your _woman.”_

The way she says that word, dripping with disgust—it makes Jaime feel so helpless.

“I asked another person who loves you for help,” he says, and she scoffs. “No, Brienne, that’s what I did. Would you rather have woken up to find yourself tied to the bedposts and me forcing the tonic down your throat? Would you want me to hold a sword to your stomach unless you took it?”

“I would rather you—you—” she stutters, anger blunting her tongue. He swings his legs off the bed and stands, ready to fight her for herself.

“You’re not ‘my _woman,’_ Brienne, whatever the hell that means, you’re mine and I’m yours, remember? You were killing yourself!”

She finally breaks eye contact, staring down into the fire with her jaw clenched tight. “How do you feel now?” he demands, hand and stumping thrown up in the air. “Was it poison, did it hurt you? Or are you back, are you _here,_ are you—”

“I’m _trying_ , all right?” she bellows, and in the same breath the tears come, and he’s never seen her cry like this before, he’s seen her cry at loss and at happiness and once or twice during some truly remarkable sex, but this kind of raw, broken sobbing is new, the way her face crumples is new, the ripping feeling in his chest is somehow new.

He’s got her gathered in his arms in seconds, and when he feels her knees shaking with the force of her bawling he braces her weight against him and lowers them both down onto the fur rug beside the fire, keeping her pressed as tightly to him as he can. She’s half-cradled in his lap, her hips between his legs and her own long legs hooked over one of his thighs, her left side on his chest and her face buried in his shoulder. Snot and tears are already dampening the whole right side of his shirt, and he couldn’t give less of a shit.

“What am I supposed to do?” she chokes out between sobs. “Be too big and too strong and swing a sword, that’s all I know, and if it doesn’t work then I _can’t_ , Jaime, I can’t do this, I don’t know how, I only know one thing and it’s not right, it failed, I failed—”

“No no no no no,” he chants, his lips in her hair, his right arm as far around her as it can go and pulling her in, closer, harder, safer. “You haven’t failed, you never—”

“I _have,_ ” she whimpers. “I’m trying and I’m failing, it’s only going to get worse, I should never—I’m so sorry, Jaime, I’m sorry—”

He reaches across with his good hand and pushes at her chin, lifting her beautiful blotchy tear-stained face off his shoulder and he kisses her, hard, as hard as he can, the taste of blood dull on his tongue. He kisses her again and again, and she hiccups and sobs and shakes her head but kisses him back, every time, comes back to him, and her arms go around his neck and his hand is in her hair and slowly, very slowly, she quiets. The kisses become softer, longer, and finally they’re just sitting there, eyes closed, foreheads pressed together, firelight warm on their skin.

Jaime isn’t sure how long they just stay, not moving, not speaking, but by the time she sniffles and pulls back a bit and they open their eyes, the fire is half-dead and his leg is asleep.

“That was ridiculous,” she says, rubbing her eyes and wiping her nose on her sleeve, and he laughs, he can’t help it, she sounds so much like a grumpy child.

“Most things are, if you really think about them,” he replies. She elbows him in the ribs but there’s no strength behind it, and a second later she sighs and drops her head back onto her shoulder.

“I’ve never felt so awful.” It’s like she’s confessing a secret, something dark and shameful and wrong. “I wanted to die, Jaime, I really did. Every second was—oh Gods, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Then let’s not. It’s over now.”

“What if it’s not?” She shudders in his arms and he turns his head, kissing her hair. “It did go away, after I took the—after I took it, but my stomach still feels rotten. And the sickness might come back.”

“Then you’ll take more tonic,” he whispers, running his stump up and down her back. “That’s how this works, Brienne.”

“How would I fucking know?” she snaps. All of a sudden she’s scrambling to her feet, his lap is cold and empty, and she stomps over to her side of the bed and starts to take off her boots while he struggles to get up with one hand and a totally numb leg.

“I’m not saying—”

“I know what you’re saying,” she spits, and he’s got whiplash, the cold anger to the tears to the hot anger, and in the back of his mind he remembers that Cer—that she used to be like this too, when she was pregnant, not quite so quick on the turn but volatile, swinging from one deep emotion to the other, pouring cruel things into his ear one moment and drawing her tongue down his throat the next, telling him she loved him and then chastising him for not bowing deeply enough to Robert at court, in front of Robert, in front of everyone, humiliating him, and then back again to love, exhausting, repetitive—

But Brienne wasn’t like that. She’s not being cruel, not to him, only to herself.

 _I don’t have to stand back and take it, let_ her _take it, this time._

“No you don’t,” he says, and even though he’s still wobbling on one leg he tries to sound as stern and sincere as he can, and she does look at him, though that angry, mulish expression remains firmly fixed in place. “If you did, I wouldn’t need to keep saying it.”

“Then by all means, Ser Jaime,” she sneers, “translate for me, poor stupid innocent that I am.”

“I can’t make it any clearer.” Refusing to rise to the bait, he sits on the other side of the bed, his leg tingling as blood starts to flow again. “You haven’t failed, Brienne, because this is not a thing that can be failed. Not by you, not by anyone.”

She finishes removing her boots and throws them into a corner, again, very unlike herself. When she turns to him, the anger is still there, but he can already see it starting to fade, eclipsed by the weariness she must feel, body and soul.

“We both know that isn’t true, Jaime. Our mothers—”

“Did everything they could, fought to the last man, and lost, in the end, but not for foolishness or lack of trying!”

“It can’t all be chance,” she says, stubborn, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“It’s not, but—damn it, Brienne, you’re allowed to make mistakes! You’ve never done this before and it’s not like the sword, there’s no Master of Babes to study with. I haven’t carried a child but I’ve seen how it goes and it’s never the same way twice, so there’s no way to fail, there’s no right or wrong, there’s just making it across the threshold, by hook or by crook.”

He slides slowly towards her, across the bed, waiting for her to shift or draw back but she doesn’t, she just stares down into her lap.

“You are the first female knight in history,” he whispers, “you’ve battled bears and kings and armies of the dead, there is no one in Westeros who could best you in a fair fight. After all you’ve done, why is it so hard to believe that you could do this too?”

“This isn’t like those things.” Her voice is so tiny, so sad, his heart is breaking. “This is a woman’s task.”

“And you are a woman,” he says, settling his good hand over hers where it lies on the blanket. She surprises him by turning her hand over and lacing their fingers together. “You have a woman’s body, a woman’s heart, a woman’s mind. And a woman’s sword. And a woman’s battle scars. And a woman’s honor as a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It can all be true at once, Brienne.”

She squeezes his hand tight. Her eyes are shut, she’s biting her lip, and he can see it unfolding in front of him like a tourney fight, the part of her that wants to accept and believe and the part of her that still insists everyone was right, they were always right, she has to choose and she’s made her choice and the punishment for it is justly eternal.

He shuffles closer to her, almost right up against her back, and rests his forehead on her shoulder, mouth pressed against her through her shirt.

“I love you,” he says, low but clear. She lets out a shaky breath and he says it again. “I _love_ you. You can’t fail, not at this, not at being loved. Mine, Brienne, in love with you, all of you, _mine.”_

He can feel her trembling slightly, and she coughs in a way that lets him know the tears are back, if less violently than before.

“I…I really am trying, Jaime.”

“Well then _stop,_ for Gods’ sakes,” he mutters, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. “It’s not a tourney, you don’t get better marks for putting on a show of effort. Let me help a little every once in a while. Let us figure this out together.”

“But you’ve already…” she trails off, and he takes a deep breath, squeezing her hand.

“I told you, it’s always different. I’m as new as you are to this, to ours.”

“Ours,” she whispers

A moment. Then: “if I lost our child…could you ever forgive me?”

Jaime doesn’t even have to think about it. “If you lost the child there would be nothing to forgive.”

“But—”

“You are enough, Brienne.”

She gasps lightly, then lets out a breath, long and unhurried, and by the end of it she’s sagging back a little, slumping against him. She’s warm and pliable and not lying on the floor heaving into a chamberpot anymore, and it’s _great._

“I want our child, Jaime,” she says, soft, and her head falls back onto his shoulder. The weight of it is wonderful. “But I think I shall love it far more when it’s not bloody living in me.”

He snorts and kisses her neck as he begins trying to unlace her shirt with one hand.

“Excuse me?”

She grabs his wrist, twists to look at him, and she’s got one eyebrow up and a slightly ornery expression and it’s so normal pure _Brienne_ that he could cry. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Undressing you for bed, my lady,” he answers, and when her eyebrow goes up even higher he rolls his eyes and says, “So that you might sleep more comfortably. Unless you _want_ me to crawl on top of you and—”

“Oh Gods no, not now,” she groans, and he gives an exaggerated huff of indignation. “I’d probably just throw up on you.”

He grins, and together they both wrestle out of their clothes and under the covers. The fire is only embers now, and dark clouds cover the moon and stars. Brienne sighs and wriggles around until she’s molded up behind him, the way she likes sometimes and the way he secretly fucking loves, her arm around his waist and his chest relaxing back into hers.

“Gods, you have no idea how good it feels to lie down without my stomach trying to heave itself out of my throat,” she groans. He reaches back to rub her hip.

“If it does come back, Brienne—”

“I’ll take the fucking tonic,” she grunts, kicking him lightly in the calf. “Tastes horrible, by the way, you won’t be kissing me for a good long while.”

“I’d kiss you no matter what you taste like,” he says sleepily, the exhaustion finally settling as he lets himself sink into the warmth of the bed and her and a reprieve from suffering, and behind him she grumbles a little but nuzzles his ear and sighs with something just approaching contentment.

“Only five more months of this,” he hears her whisper, maybe only to herself. But he hooks his leg back over hers and shrugs.

“Who knows,” he says, now half-asleep. “Maybe spring will come first.”

**209 Days**

* * *

Spring hasn’t come. But other things have.

For one thing, the winter makes it clear it has no desire or plans to alleviate, and that in fact it’s come even harder than they thought. Snow constantly, snow every day, and it’s been the better part of a year since the Long Night and people are starting to live their lives again, farmers growing winter crops and warming their livestock, soldiers pitching in as harvest-hands and builders and cooks, fights and love affairs and dramatic little sagas skipping over the surface of it all like rocks across a calm lake. News from the South confirms that the Iron Fleet and Golden Company are still iced in, that the people of King's Landing do not starve but that the armies within it have nowhere to go. The Dragon Queen has decided to settle semi-permanently in Moat Caillin, and though it’s a huge relief to most that she’s no longer present in the castle, it means Tyrion is gone too. Jaime misses his brother dearly, the way he could make dull days indoors seem interesting and full of wry promise. They exchange ravens, but the birds are limited and need to heal after even short journeys, so it’s not really the same. Even Grey Worm and Missandei, neither of whom were known for their loquacity as Tyrion is, leave a hole in Winterfell behind them.

_I’m not sure when this began feeling like a home, but it does, and when people leave it hurts._

_Do I like that?_

For another thing, Jaime has a hook now. It’s not as big as he imagined it, only about as wide around as a clenched fist, but the point is wonderfully sharp, drawing blood at a light scratch, and it thickens at the center of the curve just enough that he can actually balance things on it, like a cup or a plate. There’s a cork cover for the tip that slides on and off seamlessly, and best of all, it’s a thousand times lighter than his golden hand was, with only one strap, minimal padding, and a couple cunningly designed buckles to keep it in place.

When Gendry brings him to the forge and presents it to him, Jaime has no idea what to say. He never really thought the boy would do it, assumed it was just a thought in a pleasant conversation they’d had, one of their first, and the offer stood should he ever press the matter. But then Gendry is showing him how to fasten it to his wrist, stepping back and appraising his work with satisfaction, and Jaime’s mouth goes dry.

_Am I getting my hopes up?_

“Good fit,” Gendry remarks, adjusting the leather cuff slightly. “I worried I’d gone a bit too narrow but you’ve got those slim little highborn wrists, it’s fine.”

“Slim enough to go right up your arse,” Jaime mutters absently as he turns his forearm back and forth, watching the hook gleam in the firelight. “It’s—steel, you said?”

“Aye, forged right here. Should be easy enough for you to get on and off yourself. Just make sure you remember the cover when you’re not fighting, otherwise you’ll be poking holes in everything—and everyone.”

Jaime doesn’t bother rolling his eyes at the slightly leery face Gendry makes. Instead he thanks the boy sincerely, once and twice and then again, and plans to do it more, because it might be a little intimidating and a little scary to think about learning to use even the bare replacement for a hand, but it’s more than he ever expected to have back and the generosity, especially from the bastard of the man Jaime hated more than almost anyone, stuns him.

Also, it’s not as though Gendry isn’t…on the right track.

Because something else that’s come instead of spring is Brienne, more of Brienne, everything Brienne, and Jaime worried he might not be able to keep up with it but he’ll more than happily die trying.

The nausea has since become a manageable problem: though it still sneaks up on her every couple weeks, Gilly’s tonic works just as well as she said it would, and by the third time it settles her stomach and gets her out of bed after hours of moaning and heaving, Brienne isn’t even bitching about having to take it anymore. Instead, she’s bitching about her clothes, and he can understand why, because in her fifth and sixth month she’s _expanded_ , there’s really no better way to put it. Her stomach is taut and full, long rather than wide, so while she actually still has a bit of a waist from a front-facing angle, move to the side and it becomes clear how the babes are filling her, pushing out from her ribcage right below her breasts and straining out into the world all the way down to where her thighs meet, almost turning her into a square.

Also, yes. Babes.

Twins run in Jaime’s family, after all, far back, with at least two or three sets born every generation, usually more. Jaime doesn’t think of it at first, and then as time goes by and she begins to grow bigger and bigger and bigger, he wonders, briefly—but then he packs it away, dismisses it, in part because his own experience with being a twin has taken such a strange and upsetting shape and he doesn’t want to think about that happening to his own children, watching them constantly in paranoid fear that they will become like him and Cersei. He wants his children to know from the moment they come into the world that they are their own person, not half a whole, not tied to another through the mechanics of birth. No one will ever tell his children that nothing else matters.

But then comes the day Brienne first stops in the middle of a sentence at dinner and gets a strange look on her face, like she's about to be sick, and he leans over to ask what's wrong but she grabs his hand without speaking and pushes it against the side of her stomach, down on the left, and he feels it. A quiet flutter, barely enough to register, but that's--he knows what that--

The moment ends when Podrick returns with another jug of water and sees Jaime with his hand on Brienne's stomach and gasps, "Oh Gods, is the baby coming?" 

"No, Pod, not yet," Brienne says dryly, dropping Jaime's hand. "But it does seem to be--moving, a little bit."

" _Moving?"_ Podrick sounds like he's just heard that grumpkins and snarks are real and about to attack Winterfell under another Night King. "Is it--are they supposed to do that?"

"Yes they are," Jaime tells him, not even trying to hide his smile. Brienne rolls her eyes but he sees her hand slip down to that same place and press, gentle, against the taut skin. And that night, when they're lying in bed and he's stroking her stomach, hoping to inspire another little nudge, she says, "Maybe Gilly should take a look...just in case. Just to check."

He knows that means she's worried. He wants to tell her not to be, this is all normal, but the truth is that flutter under her skin has made him want to be cautious, be careful, do everything he can to protect it. 

Gilly comes to their rooms and once she hears the situation she shrugs and says, “Let’s take a look, just to make sure,” and though Brienne goes bright red and sputters Gilly starts matter-of-factly stacking pillows up against the head of the bed, and when she holds out a hand Brienne stares at it like it’s a dead rat but eventually lets herself be pulled onto the bed and settled back with her knees up and open.

“Do you want him to leave?” Gilly says, nodding at Jaime. He looks Brienne in the eye and she chews her lip and huffs and finally says, “If he wants to be an idiot and stay for this he can.”

“You _wound_ me, my lady,” he tells her, even as he steps up to the side of the bed and takes her hand, and she squeezes it so fucking hard he think he might lose this one too.

It would be worth it, for her.

“I need you to take the breeches off,” Gilly says, and Brienne blushes even harder but shimmies out of her breeches, which have gotten tight and stretched around the top and lower knees, and Gilly moves her legs back apart and then she’s—poking around down there, doing something Jaime can’t see, something that makes Brienne gasp and cough and stare at the ceiling like she’s trying to burn a hole through it with her eyes.

“Try to relax,” he whispers, because he knows how embarrassed she is when it comes to “woman things,” even with him. She glares at him.

“Why don’t _you_ lay down and let Samwell Tarly grab at _your_ precious cock and let _me_ tell _you_ to relax,” she hisses. He grins, he can’t help himself.

“I have the sense Maester Tarly would be quite a gentle and respectful man, if it ever came to that.”

“Ser Brienne?” Gilly pipes up, her head appearing in between Brienne’s thighs like a meadow-hog peeking out of its hole in the ground. “How much are you eating?”

“Not—much?” Brienne frowns, confused. “Not as much as I was the first couple months.”

“She skips meals sometimes,” Jaime pipes up, and she elbows him in the side.

“Stop _telling_ on me.”

“Then tell on yourself, you lunatic, she’s trying to help.”

“Just because I forget to eat dinner—”

“And then you’re all cranky the next morning—”

“There’s two in there,” Gilly announces triumphantly, and all the air gets sucked out of the room.

“What,” Brienne croaks finally. Gilly nods, patting Brienne’s bare thigh as she climbs off the bed and wipes her hands on a cloth.

“You’re very large for this far along, and you’re not just getting fat either. Plus, there are some things in the private area that tell, I’ve seen it a lot before.” Gilly smiles at both of them, her wide eyes kind and excited, and Jaime wants to swallow or speak or breathe or do something but he’s not sure he can.

“Twuh—twins,” he finally manages, and Gilly nods.

“That’s right. They'll probably start fighting for space soon, twins do that, kick all over the place. Shouldn't be painful, though.”

Jaime turns to Brienne. She looks like she’s watching the Army of Death approach all over again. “Twins.”

“Twins!” Gilly chirps, and that’s the moment when Jaime gets it together enough to thank her and usher her out of the room.

When he closes the door and turns back around, Brienne is on her feet, pulling her trousers back on. They stare at each other, totally flabbergasted, and then Brienne says, “So that’s…two, then.”

“I think so, yes,” he answers. They stare some more, and then he goes to her and puts his good hand up against her cheek.

“Are you all right?” he asks quietly, plainly, because he knows how overwhelming this is for her already, the idea of being a mother, raising a family, having a part of herself that isn’t controlled by her own will and sinew. One is tremendous, two is beyond imagining.

“I…” She frowns a little, reaching up to play absently with the collar of his shirt. “I…”

Jaime will give her all the time in the world but he really fucking wishes she would say something.

“I suppose it will be easier to find them sparring partners.”

There’s a smile on her face and more than a little fear in her eyes but joy and excitement and something strong and beautiful, all at once, and Jaime gasps and kisses her and his hand presses to her stomach, the way that always makes her grown and laugh at him, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t _care_ , those are his _children_ in there, they need to know he’ll be there for them, exactly how his father never was.

So a second baby has come, at least it feels that way, and her health has come _back_ , and her belly is coming more and more every day, and that’s all great.

But that’s still not all that’s come.

He wouldn’t have expected it, not after the terrifying bout with the sickness and how it made her mistrust her body and step gingerly for weeks at a time, like any sudden movements might awaken some new weakness within her. And it didn’t really happen with Cersei, maybe a little bit with Tommen and Joffrey but only occasionally, a few times in the later months when she was restless and frustrated and already wound tight.

Brienne is different.

First it’s just her waking him up in the morning with kisses along his throat, a warm hand and beautiful long fingers scratching gently at the hair on his chest, catching on a nipple, her toes curling playfully against his calf. He’s never in the world been one to turn down morning sex, especially since he and Cersei had only been able to get away with it a handful of times _(and the fear had kind of taken something out of the experience)_ and so for a few days he happily answers her tentative morning advances with full-fledged counterattack, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close so that his hardening cock pokes her in the thigh, the hip, sometimes even her belly, and at first he was embarrassed but she giggled him it was fine, maybe even a little fun, and he’d raised his eyebrows and kissed the hell out of his wife, who apparently had an interesting idea of the word “fun.”

Which—oh, he does not even know how right he was, or how _wrong_ he was, all those years ago. Because apparently, Brienne does know what “fun” is, and in the fifth and sixth months of her pregnancy she wants to have it.

A lot.

She’s still Brienne, she still fulfills her duties to Ladies Sansa and Arya with perfect dignity and strength, she still trains religiously, big as she’s getting, and she still joins the rest of them for supper, chatting with Pod and Davos and the Hound and sometimes Gendry and Arya. But there’s still time left over in between all that, and that’s when she wants to have _fun._

It’s addicting, the way she wants, and the way she wants _him_ , of all people, Jaime Lannister, the sisterfucking Kingslayer with one hand. In the morning she usually prefers to be at his mercy somehow: his tongue relentless and wet between her legs, her legs up over his shoulders while he looks down at her and fucks her harder, _more,_ his fingers deep as they can go and putting all his power into the way they curl against her. Her breasts have grown beyond the bounds of belief, they look like—well, not objectively large, but they hang and swell in a way they never did before, and much as Jaime genuinely loves the higher, flatter chest she’s always had he can’t help indulging in her new bosom like a man dying of thirst indulges in lake of clear water, tongue and mouth and teeth all over, hands grasping, their softness pressed on either side of his face and if he has to die someday then this wouldn’t be a bad place to do it.

In these morning times she’s—not submissive, but she submits. She gasps and mewls and squirms and begs, and he feels like he’s getting the chance to really take care of her, to let Ser Brienne surrender without fear of retribution, to hold her pleasure and her safety in his arms and prove himself trustworthy with both. It’s not the sleepy morning fucks they’ve had in the past, but he’s not complaining in the slightest. After all a little bit of exertion in the morning is good for a man.

In the morning, yes, and in the late morning, and at lunchtime, and in the afternoon, late afternoon, even briefly right before supper. She finds him as he goes about his day, appearing at his side in the kitchens or on the way down to the training yard or coming towards the counsel room where he’ll meet with Davos and Jon Snow, and when he sees her coming his stomach is suddenly burning hot because she’s got this _look_ in her eye, like she wants to hear him beg, like she wants him helpless and hers, and it doesn’t really matter how his day is going or what kind of mood he’s in, that look makes it all go away.

More often than not, she doesn’t want anything complicated. Her fist closes around the front of his tunic or his upper arm and she pulls him into some alcove or stairway, and then she—well, she takes him apart, kissing him filthy and hard and vicious, rolling her hips, grabbing at his hair hard enough to bring tears to his eyes and get him hard as a rock almost embarrassingly fast. After the first couple times, she seems to work up the courage and just slides her hand down and rubs him directly through his breeches, the heel of her hand warm and hard and absolutely relentless. The first time she did that, between the determined force of her movements and the surprise of it happening at all, Jaime apparently reclaimed his youth in full and came in his trousers, wind punched out of him, stifling his surprised shout in her shoulder and clawing pathetically at her with one hand and a cork-capped hook.

The best part was, when she realized what had happened, she’d pulled back in shock, started to stutter what sounded like an apology—and then, as she stared at his equally shocked and deeply flushed face, she’d stopped talking and just smiled, a predatory grin that drew an agonizing shudder out of his just-spent body, and with one chaste kiss to the cheek she’d swept past him, out of the little annex they’d been in and back to Lady Sansa or wherever the hell she was going, leaving him with a humiliating wet stain spreading across his crotch, a brain that could barely recall what day it was, and a sudden, blinding certainty that this moment, right now, was more erotic than anything he’d ever experienced.

They don’t do it all the time after that, partly out of a consideration for laundry and for the fact that if Jaime is caught walking hurriedly back to his rooms with a bowlegged gate and an obscene stain on his breeches it will probably do very little good, and in fact quite a lot of harm, to the precarious social respect he’s earned in his time at Winterfell. But it does happen sometimes, her jerking him off brutally through his pants until he falls apart and spills and then she walks off, without letting him touch her, glowing with self-satisfaction and confidence while he gasps and shakes and loves the feeling of being so deliberately _used_ by this impossible, perfect woman. She knows, obviously, and she likes it too, gets playful with it, occasionally slipping her hand onto his thigh during dinner and stroking him just gently enough that when it’s time to retire for the night he has to have just one more drink, tell one more story, and only when she takes pity on him and casually leaves the table, chastising him for staying up late, does he have a chance to calm down long enough to make it out of the main hall without causing a scandal and go back to their room and make her _pay for it._

When it’s not that, it’s other things, during the day. Sometimes she kneels before him and sucks him off, and fuck, that’s dirty and arousing in a whole other way, the mighty Brienne of Tarth literally on her knees, mouth around his cock, beautiful graceful fingers moving over his balls and base, moaning when he puts a hand in her hair, totally debased and loving it. He comes in her mouth and kisses her afterwards, which somehow still makes her blush, he can’t understand why, but that _is_ one of his favorite parts. Sometimes she lets _him_ ravish her, which he does with delight: his hand down the front of her breeches, fingers wicked and fast and unforgiving, or a leg over his shoulder as he gets on his own knees and uses his tongue on her, or rarely, especially as she gets bigger, a quick actual fuck up against the wall, her arms locked around her neck, her teeth buried in the meat of his shoulder, him panting and pushing and searching for just the right angle under the swell of her belly, the one that will make her yelp and whine and claw at him, the one that leaves her staggering and dopey and red as a Flea Bottom drunk when she comes down.

That’s another part of it, the way she comes. It’s—stronger, somehow, than before she was pregnant, or even this far along. He’s come to know everything about the way she makes love, every different note in the song, every step and turn with the sword, so he can tell that something’s changed. It’s like what starts doesn’t stop, not when it usually does, it just keeps going, building on itself, and it’s truly astounding to watch, especially once he knows to look for it. They _last,_ orgasms going a full minute, two minutes, and she loses her mind, loses control, and it’s fucking glorious, the way her back arches, her bulging stomach heaving with heavy breath, Gods he loves how she looks pregnant, the idea of life inside her right now, and her mouth falls open, her nails rake across him or the bedspread or her own hair—and those _sounds_ , Gods, Brienne was never exactly quiet in bed, she fucks like she fights with grunting and shouting and gasping, but whatever’s happening now takes her to a place beyond words, wailing noises and choked cries and high-pitched panting, sometimes groans that sound like agonizing pain, sometimes his name in increasing volume, bouncing off the walls. _(He knows people can hear, one day he comes down to breakfast and Ser Davos says with a straight face, “You didn’t kill her, did you?” and Podrick goes purple and the Hound sneers and Jaime just shrugs and grins and says, “If one of us dies from it, it won’t be her.”)_

The day Gilly tells them she’s carrying twins, Jaime—well, he’s not disappointed, because he’s not _entitled_ , she doesn’t owe him anything, obviously, but he has to admit, he was hoping the good news might be cause for celebration, and though he’s more exhausted than he’s ever been and more fucked-out than he thought was possible, he still wants more, she’s infectious, he’ll have her ‘til he bursts.

But she doesn’t come find him that day, doesn’t touch him at dinner, and in the evening, which amidst all the impromptu fucking and teasing is the one time of day they very regularly go to town on each other, she seems distracted and distant. He finally gives up on trying to pull her pants off with his hook _(which normally she finds very sexy, he’s not sure why but he’ll take it)_ and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“This,” she says, frowning, and he sighs and lies down beside her on the bed. They’re both naked from the waist down, cast gold in the firelight, and he can see the shadow of a bruise on her hip in the shape of his left forefinger and thumb.

“Well, that’s news to me,” he says lightly. “Not that I’m an expert by any means, but in my experience we’ve been doing it all very, very right.”

“We shouldn’t be _doing it_ like this at all,” she insists, anxiety tight in her voice and her big blue eyes wide. “This is—it’s wanton, Jaime, it’s dishonorable—”

“We’re married,” he reminds her, petting her hair with his good hand. “And it’s not like we’re doing it in Lady Sansa’s bed or anything.”

“Jaime!”

_Gods, I really love it when her face goes that color._

“Unless you want to?”

“Ugh, no—” She pushes him back a bit, runs a hand over her face. “I just don’t think—we have _two babes_ coming, Jaime, all this—this—”

“Fucking?”

“ _Fucking,”_ she repeats, rolling her eyes at him, “yes, it’s not proper now.”

“It was proper with one babe but not with two?”

He’s just teasing, but he can start to see it, where this is coming from, the rising panic behind her eyes. The changes in her body have been extreme, some for good and some for difficulty, and though she’s weathered it all so far, the idea of an extra life at stake now, when they still have months to go—well, he can understand why it’s thrown her.

“Brienne, when the babes are born—and they’ll be born healthy and beautiful and you’ll be there to greet them—”

“Jaime, don’t—”

“When that happens,” he continues, and she frowns but lets him. “You and I will have a thousand new things to do, every day, over and over, for years. It will be exciting and exhausting and terrifying in turns, I imagine, and there’s no one else I could ever dream of managing it with.”

He kisses her once, soft, chaste, but then stays close when he pulls back, his breath playing over her lips.

“But the thing is, we’ll have a lot _less_ time for things like this,” he whispers, and the shudder that goes through her delights him. “Don’t you think it would be more dishonorable to be fucking our brains out _after_ our children are born, when they need us? Whereas now, it’s just you and—”

She grabs him, kisses him like an avalanche and rolls him onto his back. Jaime groans when he feels her stomach press against his, grabs a breast and squeezes hard, and lets himself be consumed. Because evenings, this time, is _Brienne’s_ time, when she holds him down and rides him or commands him where to put his hands and how to move them or makes him ask her permission to come. The mornings and the daytime dalliances melt away every night, her coy side and desire for care and comfort retreat and she is alive in this evenings, a warrior in battle, and he’s her squire and her troops and her enemy all at once, he worships her as she lets her power show, and if sometimes he has to give her a little pep talk to remind her where that power comes from—

Well, he doesn’t mind at all.


	7. Three Hundred (and One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. There's another chapter after this, as well as an epilogue. And even so, this chapter is SO FUCKING LONG, I'm so sorry. The last chapter was actually cut in half already because it was running really long, and now this one is a friggin' novel and I'm nowhere close to where I wanted to be. So, woops. Guess I need an extra chapter to get it all done.
> 
> Thank you all so so much for your incredible reviews. This fic has been really wonderful therapy for me this summer, and a huge part of that is hearing from all of you and feeling so proud and lucky to be surrounded by such kind people. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I would love love love to continue hearing what you think. This chapter is partly super-long because I wanted to look at a couple other GoT characters whom I love and want to make happy forever, so I apologize for the tangents. If you hate them, tell me!
> 
> Again, a blanket SORRY to everyone who knows something about all the shit I got wrong in terms of research and stuff. I tried, y'all. (Sort of.) (No I did, my search history is FUCKED.)
> 
> And finally, I don't care if "schlepped" is not a word in Westeros, my people spent thousands of years wandering in the desert just to come up with one perfect word for hauling shit around thanklessly and damn it I will USE IT.

_Beacon._

_She’d been seven years old. It wasn’t any kind of a real blade, just a long piece of driftwood black with sandy salt at the thicker end and tapered to a fine point at the other. But for more than a week after she’d found it on the beach, Brienne had her very first sword._

_Beacon._

_She liked it because it sounded just like her own name, “Brienne,” and as a shy child who blushed when her few words came out in a low stutter there was a funny comfort in that. They were two of a kind, starting with Bs and ending with Ns, stout, hardy sounds that recognized each other. She had no brothers or sisters, the lowborn girls didn’t like her because she played rough, the lowborn boys didn’t like her because she was a girl. But a sword—a sword could be hers, part of a matched set, belonging and right._

_Brienne’s Beacon. Beacon and Brienne. Beacon of Brienne._

_But it wasn’t just the sound of it that led Brienne to choose her first sword’s name. One night there was a terrible storm, the kind she loved and hated all at once, shrieking wind and rain that fell so hard and fast it stung and thunder and lightning pounding the sky down around her ears. It was exciting and scary and loud and everywhere, and to Brienne it meant clambering into her father’s lap and sipping hot milk while he read aloud from one of the many moldy-smelling, thick-paged books in his study. Histories of the Targaryen dynasty and their terrifying dragons, fairy tales about magic wolves and castles that floated on islands, and knights, endless knights, men who fought the monsters others could not. Brienne liked those the best._

_(Their ritual had come about by accident, during the first big storm after Brienne’s mother died, when Brienne had reached for Septa Roelle and had her knuckles rapped and was told to stop being foolish, it’s just a storm, a Lady of the Stormlands isn’t allowed to be scared of storms, so she had turned on her little heel and bolted for her father’s study, a strong runner even at the age of four, and when she burst through the half-open door she found him standing at the window, staring out at the chaos of the sea and sky, tall as the tallest tree on Tarth, his strawberry-blonde beard smelling of wine and candle-smoke, and she’d run straight to him and wrapped herself around one thick leg and had refused to be pried loose, even when Septa Roelle came in barking and badgering, and then after only a couple attempts her father had told the septa to leave them be and he’d picked Brienne up in his arms—he was the only one she ever let lift her, if her mother did she can’t remember—and brought her to the white beachwood bookcases and told her to choose, and once her chubby hand had settled on the spine of a book covered in moldy gold brocade and featuring a little painting of a red lion eating a green dragon, he sat them both down in his massive oak-carved chair and that was that.)_

_Even though she was a bigger girl of seven now and she couldn’t run crying to her father just because of some thunder and heavy waves, they still had their custom, and she wasn’t being a baby because he liked having her there during the big storms, it was for Father as well as for her. She didn’t tell him that he’d helped her name her first sword, but he had, because the night after she’d found her weapon lying near a pile of rotting seaweed and smuggled it into the keep behind her back, her father read to her from The Westerly Beacon._

_“Bacon? Like breakfast?” she’d asked quizzically, and he’d laughed, a wonderful booming noise that bested the thunder, and run a massive hand through her own tangled blonde hair._

_“No, my girl, a beacon is not something you have for breakfast.”_

_“Then what is it?”_

_“It’s…well, it can be many things. Most often some kind of light that only appears in the dark, to keep you from stumbling or drifting away.”_

_He had pointed out the window, where the rain was coming down in violent black sheets, to the tiniest glimmer of light that Brienne could see from her own chamber every night as she fell asleep. “The Southern Watchman and its brothers to the east and north are beacons. They stop our ships from running aground on nights like this. In the dark and terrible storms, they shine bright and strong, and captains know to look for them to keep their course.”_

_Brienne had seen it many times in the daylight, the sturdy old lighthouse on the cliffs overlooking the Cold Beach, with its strange hat of cloudy bluish glass and its smooth grey walls that got crumbly in hot weather and needed to be patched up. Every evening, Old Hermel would dutifully light the bonfire at the top, and smoke would drift away in the breeze, and Brienne would see the Watchman winking at her as she fell asleep. On that night, while the storm raged, she had jumped from her father’s lap, The Westerly Beacon momentarily forgotten, and run to the window, peering out at the smudge of light just barely visible through the downpour._

_“Is a beacon the same as a lighthouse, then?” she’d asked. Father had laughed again and she’d scowled. Even when it was Father, she hated being laughed at._

_“A lighthouse is a beacon, but a beacon is not always a lighthouse. A beacon can be a candle, a torch, the moon shining on the sea…and it doesn’t even need to make light. Sometimes it’s just a good, helpful thing that tells you the way when you’re lost. Like a signpost, or a song, or a willful child.”_

_Brienne hadn’t been looking at her father then, so she hadn’t seen the soft way his face moved, how his eyes lingered on her and on the delicate little fingers and small ears that were so like her dead mother’s. No, Brienne had been looking out at the Southern Watchman and thinking._

_A beacon does not have to make light. A beacon is good and helpful and bright and strong. A beacon helps you find the way._

_The next day, as her father bustled away to speak to fishermen and farmers who needed help to rebuild what the storm had ripped up and blown down, and as Septa Roelle searched in vain for her little captive, Brienne took her precious driftwood sword and run down to the Cold Beach, where she spent hours swinging it back and forth, jabbing and lunging like knights did in the books her father read to her, making tiny but deep footprints in the wet sand and feeling proud and tall beneath the shadow of the Watchman on the cliffs overhead._

_I am Brienne of Tarth and I will lead the way. I will save the lost people and the ships on the sea. I will be a great knight, known through all the seven kingdoms, and they will see me coming when I raise my sword Beacon and it shines mightily in the sun._

_Septa Roelle found Beacon in her room nine days later and used it for firewood. Brienne raged and cried and received a reluctant whipping from her father after Septa Roelle appealed to the not-yet-lost cause of teaching the girl it was not acceptable to play at man’s work. She didn’t get another sword until she was thirteen, and it was also made of wood, and it came with a master who taught her and drilled her and showed her the right way to move her feet in wet sand._

_But she swore never to name a sword again._

_Not unless it meant something._

**300 Days**

* * *

_Gods, this feels so fucking good._

Brienne springs off her back foot and pivots neatly on her front as she grips Oathkeeper’s hilt with both hands and brings the blade smashing down on the poor straw dummy. It makes a pathetic _PWUFF_ noise as it finally gives up the ghost and falls apart completely, its lumpy sack of a head and overstuffed arms exploding along their seams. Panting heavily, she steps back and admires her handiwork. That’s the third dummy she’s killed today. Granted, they’re old ones who have been half-ruined by the damp, which is how she got her hands on them anyway, but a woman eight months pregnant with two babes will take what victories she can get, especially when it comes to hand-to-hand combat.

Sweat stings her eyes as it trickles down her forehead. The drops fall from her nose and she watches them splash onto her massive swollen belly and freeze there, icy streaks on the leather of her jerkin. Her upper back and thighs are on fire, overtasked as they are with keeping her upright in spite of the added girth throwing off her center of gravity: on every turn she’s had to wrench herself straight and flap her elbows like a wounded pheasant, her stomach continuing to spin even after the rest of her has come out of it. Her ankles are swollen and sore and her head is throbbing and her lower back doesn’t ache from exertion, just from strain, it’s killing her like always and she has to gulp cold air to work through the pain.

_This is the happiest I’ve been in weeks._

The babes are happy too. They always kick when she trains, like they’re trying to join in, and it’s taken a little time but she’s used to it now. The flutters and hiccups and twinges, the jigs they dance inside her, have become just another part of the drill, comforting even. Sometimes Brienne imagines that the babes are absorbing her exhilaration the same way they absorb her food and drink, soaking it up into their little heads and catching the same fever for swordplay that has plagued her all her life. Where she got it from is anyone’s guess, but the time for curing is far past.

Brienne strips off her right glove and stumps over to the waterskin, which she’s tucked under the mangled remains of Ser Dummy the Second to keep it from freezing in the cold. Actually drinking from it is a whole production: she has to carefully and awkwardly maneuver herself down onto her knees, then bend over until she can get one hand on the ground to hold herself up as she searches for the waterskin with the other, ignoring the babes who kick even more insistently at the sudden squeezing in their already cramped home. Once she finally finds it she has to push off hard enough to get herself back up but not so hard she unbalances and goes over onto her back like a very round turtle and has to lie there in the snow until the Gods send her some fucking help. And once she’s done all that she has to open the skin and take a drink and then repeat the entire process backwards without falling down, and she also has to do it all on a dirt floor half-covered in black ice.

_The Smiling Knight never had to deal with this shit._

Brienne begins the operation cautiously, bracing herself against the door of a stall. She’s out in the back of the old barn, where a wall buckled two months ago and forced the farmers to move their animals to a different spot. Nobody’s fixed the wall yet, possibly because it’s in a spot that angles just far enough off the nearby tower wall to result in a continuous and bone-chilling cross-breeze that never lets up, day or night, and was probably what fucked up the wall in the first place. That same breeze means Brienne has to wear her gloves and thick boots and two jerkins just to be able to feel her limbs, but it’s all worth it, it is, for an hour with a sword in her hand and sweat running down her neck and muscles burning and everything that has always meant _freedom._

_They’ll come looking for me if I stay out too much longer. The jailors will be wanting their prisoner back._

Brienne grimaces as she rummages for the waterskin, numb and clumsy fingers bumping against straw and frozen dung and bits of Ser Dummy the Second. She knows she’s being crabby and mean and unfair, she knows it’s not all that bad, she knows she’s actually pretty damn lucky if it comes to that. She and her babes are well, her stomach settled, her mind clear, her body strong. Her home is busy and thriving and safe, sealed inside its winter shell, and she doesn’t have to sleep with a knife under her pillow or a sword by her side. And her family—eclectic, mismatched, and troubled as it is—is largely healthy and happy and _here._

Kind of too much _here_ , actually. Which is the problem, if she’s being honest.

They just won’t leave her alone. It’s only gotten really bad the last two weeks, which is how long it’s been since Gilly told them Brienne was nearing full-term and also mentioned that twins usually come early, so they shouldn’t count on reaching the woman’s end, better start preparing, could be any day now. Brienne isn’t sure if she wants the babes out yesterday or wants them to linger safely inside for as long as they can, but she _is_ sure that she should have stuffed a sock in Gilly’s mouth, or at least kicked Jaime out of the room before he heard what she had to say, because once his eyes went big and his hook twitched and he stuttered, “ _Any day now?”_ Brienne knew she was in trouble.

And she was, because the first thing Jaime did was gather recruits. His first lieutenant is Podrick, his second is Ser Davos, and Ladies Sansa and Arya are allied commanders, with the Tarlys as a small but powerful field unit. He’ll even make use of mercenaries like the Hound and Gendry and the Northern woman he bakes with, Hanna, who’s the only person Brienne’s actually really afraid of. Plus, Brienne can’t prove it, but she’s pretty sure Jaime is soliciting tactics from his little brother via raven. He’ll stop at nothing to keep help at hand in case the babes come, and the result is that Brienne is very well-protected and also losing her damn mind.

Sunup to sundown, she’s being watched. She wakes up with Jaime’s hand protectively spread across the wide expanse of her belly, dresses and pisses and puts on her boots under his diligent eye. Every bite of breakfast, lunch, and dinner is monitored by someone or other, like they’re worried she’s going to choke on a piece of sausage and kill herself and the babes before anyone can stop her. It’s been weeks since she last trained, because it’s impossible to do anything properly when a nervous squire or cool-eyed Stark or Flea Bottom native is looking over her shoulder every time she parries.

The worst part is, they pretend like they’re not doing it, making excuses and acting surprised to see her _(“Oh, Ser Brienne, are you going for a walk in the godswood? I’ll come with you,” or “Mind if I join you to sup, Ser Brienne?” or “Gosh, Ser Brienne, I’ve been meaning to sew up the holes in my old breeches too, I’ll come sit with you”)._ None of it is subtle and all of it is annoying and if she could control it she would have these babies right here and now just to get some fucking privacy. It took levels of strategic rigor and planning she didn’t know she possessed to have this one hour just to herself, and even so she still had to bribe a guard to tell Pod and Ser Davos that someone had set fire to a grain silo and they were needed on the bucket brigade quick.

_(She had considered actually setting something on fire, but ultimately felt that would be going a bit far.)_

For the first time since Brienne left Tarth, she’s surrounded by people who love her and want to help her, and it’s driving her insane. They’re an army and she’s a hedge knight without even a horse. It isn’t fair.

* * *

_“You wished to speak with me, my lady?”_

_“Yes, yes, sorry, I just need another moment,” Sansa says distractedly as she scribbles on a piece of parchment. Brienne bites her lip and glances out the window, towards the sounds of steel and shouting that echo up from the training yard below. She imagines she can pull Pod and Jaime’s voices out of the mix, though it’s almost definitely not possible._

_“If you’re busy I can return later and—”_

_“I said I will be with you in a moment, Brienne,” her lady snaps, and Brienne shrinks back the tiniest bit. Sansa is never cruel or abusive, very rarely even rude, but in the privacy of her own chambers and in the company of those she trusts, she can have a bit of a short fuse. Brienne is usually very good at reading her lady’s moods, but sometimes aggravating work like grain accounting or military checks can render Sansa particularly cranky._

_(Once, early on in the winter, Arya had corralled Brienne into a long sparring session by the godswood, and as they bantered back and forth over the clash of swords she’d casually referred to her sister as “laced too tight to take a breath, let alone a cock.” Reacting purely on instinct, Brienne had boxed Arya’s ears, right before she remembered that this was both her other sworn lady and the woman who had killed the Night King and saved the world. Luckily, Arya had been just as shocked as Brienne, and the two of them just stared at each other for a long moment before Arya turned on her heel and disappeared into the forest. Brienne slept with one eye open for a couple nights after that.)_

_Sansa frowns at the page as she writes faster, her quill squeaking and scratching as she presses down too hard. Brienne is about to quietly excuse herself when Sansa straightens up and drops the quill into the inkpot, sighing in exasperation._

_“That’s the best I can do, if Cley Cerwyn has a problem with Unsullied soldiers helping to harvest his snowpeas he can just get over it.” For a moment, she sounds like a pissed-off teenage girl, and Brienne remembers how young her lady is._

_Then Sansa turns her grey eyes on Brienne and she’s all grace again, poised and calm in her straight-backed chair. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Ser Brienne. Take a seat.” Sansa’s tone is what most people would call quietly polite. Brienne knows better, though, she can hear the slightest edge of concern in Sansa’s voice._

_“Thank you, my lady,” she says, even as she begins the humiliating process of wedging herself into the same fucking wooden-armed chair she sat in when she told Lady Sansa she was going to have a child. Now she’s having two, and they’ve made her so big she can barely find her own arse, let alone navigate it into a narrow wooden seat flanked by rigid armrests._

_“Actually, I’m feeling a chill. Perhaps we can sit by the fire,” Sansa says suddenly._

_“Of course, my lady,” and Brienne feels both ashamed and grateful as she follows Sansa over to the much broader and armless chairs arranged around the massive stone fireplace._

_Brienne lets out a sigh of relief as she sits, the aching pressure lifting from her ankles even as it transfers to her lower back, which isn’t much better but at least it’s something. Sansa makes a sympathetic face as she settles herself across from Brienne, slender hands clasped in her lap._

_“You’ve quite a weight to carry.”_

_“Indeed,” Brienne says wryly, letting the veneer of formality drop slightly. She and Sansa were close before the babes, but in the last few months her lady has seen Brienne through mood swings, bouts of terrible nausea, clumsiness, endless hunger, and a recurring issue with unstoppable flatulence that has become so regular Brienne doesn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed anymore._

_Sansa bites her lip and glances at the fire. She’s struggling with something unpleasant, Brienne knows the signs, and she waits patiently for her lady to tell her what needs fixing and how she can do it._

_“Brienne…I have to relieve you of your post.”_

_The floor drops several feet. Or maybe it doesn’t, but she gets the awful sick swooping feeling in her stomach anyway._

_“It is not personal, and it is_ not _permanent,” Sansa says insistently, leaning forward to earnestly grasp Brienne’s knee with one hand. “You know how much your loyalty and your friendship mean to me, and I would never be so ungrateful as to undermine the vows you made,_ we _made.”_

_“But I can’t keep you safe,” Brienne whispers, her throat dry. “Not as I am now.”_

_Sansa bites her lip again, looking even more conflicted. “It’s not—I’m sure you could—Gods, Brienne, you’re carrying two children who could be born any second, can’t you understand why I don’t want you standing between me and danger right now?”_

_“I do train, my lady,” Brienne says stiffly. “I have not been idle, hobbled as I am—”_

_“Oh stop it,” Sansa snaps, and there she is again, a teenager, only this time Brienne is feeling like a sulky girl herself. “You’re the greatest warrior any of us have ever seen, I’m not calling you a layabout or a delinquent. You need to take care of yourself right now, which means resting, and eating enough, and not following me around through a thousand meetings on ten different floors.”_

_“Have I complained?” Brienne asks, aware even as she does that she’s being belligerent and it’s not a flattering look on her, enough people have told her so. “Have I failed to carry out any of my duties?”_

_“No, but—”_

_“Did Jaime put you up to this?”_

_“_ What?” _Sansa yelps. “No, Ser Jaime didn’t ‘put me up to this,’ don’t be absurd!”_

_“He keeps nattering on about sleeping more and tensing my knees and whatever other rubbish the maester chucked at him, I’m a grown woman, I can care for myself—”_

_“But you’re not caring for your children!”_

_The rant building in Brienne’s throat dies._

_Sansa’s jaw is set, her eyes are blazing. “Nobody doubts your capabilities, Ser Brienne. But if you would seek to protect me at the expense of protecting the babes who depend on you for their survival, whom_ you _chose to bring into this world, then you are not the knight I thought you were.”_

_Later, when she can think more clearly, Brienne will understand her lady’s words. A girl whose father was murdered right in front of her, whose mother and big brother died far away and in a friendly home, whose entire family was ripped into pieces for the sake of a chair she’d never seen and sins she’d never dreamed of committing—that girl knows the difference between love and loyalty, and much as they mingle between her and Brienne, she refuses to let any more children suffer the consequences of their exchange._

_In that moment, though, sitting before the fire with her aching back and pounding heart, all Brienne can think is—_

I failed again.

_The words echo in her head as they’ve been echoing for months, different tones and different sounds but the same meaning, always the same. Lady Sansa is watching her with eyes that glitter like ice. Brienne stares back, but she does not see her lady, she sees Lady Catelyn and Renly and a little girl drilling with a needle-thin sword on top of a mountain and another girl sitting in an inn across from a smirking Petyr Baelish and a window without a candle in it, all the times she swore to serve and failed, all the difference she could have made and didn’t._

And now I’ve already begun to fail my own children.

_A light touch on her leg brings her back. Sansa is bending forward again, reaching out, and her eyes are still bright and sharp but her small smile is kind._

_“I couldn’t have asked for anyone like you,” she says softly. “After Joffrey, after Ramsay, after everyone I lost. You have guarded and cared for me as though I were your own blood, and you have never let me down, not once. All I ask is that your own children receive nothing less than I have."_

_“I…” Brienne tries to speak but her throat won’t work. She nods instead, and blinks hard, and if one tear escapes and she has to rub it away then it’s fine, Sansa pretends not to see anyway._

_“You are still my sworn sword,” Sansa tells her, squeezing her knee. “I expect you to return to my immediate service when the time is right, and not a moment after. Do you understand?”_

_“Yes, my lady,” and it doesn’t even sound choked or hoarse, just a little quiet._

_Inside Brienne, one of the babes is drumming its little heels,_ tap tap tap _. Without thinking, she puts a hand to her stomach,_ shush _, and feels the kicks become more insistent for a brief rebellious moment before they slow and peter out. When Brienne looks up, Sansa is smiling that same gooey smile Jaime has all the time, and Brienne doesn’t roll her eyes because this is her liege Lady and not her idiot husband, but it does sober her up a little bit._

_“Who will be your guard while I am—resting, my lady?” Brienne asks, trying not to sound too glum about all the fun sleeping and sitting and not-moving that awaits her. Sansa sits back, her hand sliding away, and when she turns her face to the fire Brienne thinks she might see a slight blush spreading across her lady’s cheeks._

_“Well, my sister will be there, but she’s, you know, she’s Arya, so I’ve—I’ve asked Sandor Clegane to accompany me.”_

_“The_ Hound?”

 _“Sandor.” Sansa is_ definitely _blushing. “He’s capable, and willing, and—and I trust him.”_

_Brienne fights the urge to grind her teeth. The Hound has proven himself over the last months, no denying. He may still be a curmudgeonly asshole without the grace the Gods gave a rabid badger, but he’s worked tirelessly at the most demanding tasks: hauling debris, rebuilding walls, clearing snow, even chasing after the occasional errant sheep. He’s never cheerful about it, but he’s consistent in his efforts, whether it’s dragging a bawling ewe back by its hind legs or splitting wood for hours with a blunted axe. And more than anything, he’s been diligent in the work he does specifically for Lady Sansa. He drags heavy logs of firewood up to her room and guards her back when Brienne and Arya aren’t around and sometimes he even fetches her dinner or runs her errands, the mighty Hound playing pageboy._

_Brienne may have been called naïve once or twice in her life, but even she doesn’t think the Hound is doing all this out of the kindness of his heart._

_But she hasn’t said anything, hasn’t done anything, because Lady Sansa—well, she seems to—Brienne bristles even thinking about it, but Sansa seems to_ enjoy _the Hound. She’s heard them speaking quietly in the hallways or the courtyard, seen Sansa smile when the Hound ducks his head and fiddles with the hilt of his sword, even heard her laugh once, soft but real, as he whistled a tune Brienne could only assume usually matches a very vulgar set of lyrics. They had been in King’s Landing at the same time, Brienne knows, when Lady Sansa was a child still engaged to Joffrey and the Hound was a soulless attack dog, and maybe they’d been friendly then, but she couldn’t imagine them being—well,_ friends. 

_Only she’s seen the way they look at each other sometimes: never both at once, but when the Hound is grousing and grumbling over some manual labor Sansa’s eyes will follow his full height up and down, warm rather than icy, and when the Hound watches Sansa speak with her calm, straightforward dignity, he gets the stupidest sweetest most longing look on his face, which Brienne would laugh at if she weren’t used to seeing something very similar on Jaime’s face (and felt it on her own when she looks at Jaime, whatever, she’s only human). They seem to know something about each other that she doesn’t, and not only does it make her feel nervous and uneasy and a little bit resentful, but it makes her reluctant in more ways than one to give over care of Sansa’s person to the Hound._

_“He would never hurt her,” Jaime insists when she shares her suspicions with him, lying safe on the island of their bed after another long cold day. “Not only is he far more terrified of you than he pretends, but he’s not the same man he used to be. Between the Hound and myself, the Gods are fairly showering good fortune on unworthy sons of bitches.”_

_“You’re nothing of the sort,” she says distractedly as she plays with the calloused fingers on his good hand. “And I don’t think he’ll_ hurt _her, necessarily, but I think there might be…”_

_“What?”_

_“I don’t know, just something strange. Something like…”_

_“A romance between the Lady and the Hound?”_

_“Jaime!” she exclaims, wanting to be shocked, wanting to be indignant, but stuck with the sinking feeling that it would be foolish to be either._

_“Well, why not?”_

_“He’s more than twice her age! He’s a—a brute, a killer, and she’s—”_

_“A Lady who has known her share of brutes and killers,” Jaime says quietly. He lifts his head from where it lies on her thigh and looks her in the eye, serious. “Unless she is simple or sick in the head, she’ll be able to tell the difference.”_

_“She’s just a child,” Brienne says sulkily. Jaime sighs and shuffles around so that his head is tucked up against her neck and his stump (hook put away for the night) rests on top of her belly._

_“She was a child when I first met her. But whether it’s fair or not, she’s grown up faster than anyone would wish on a girl like that, and that’s why you serve her, and respect her, and love her. She can handle herself.”_

_“In war, not in—this.” Brienne refuses to admit he’s got a point. Lady Catelyn and Ned Stark are both gone, and Sansa may have learned to make her own way without a parent but someone still needs to look out for her, that’s what she promised Catelyn she’d do, what she promised_ Sansa _she’d do._

_“‘This’ is harder for some than others,” Jaime mumbles, amused, and kisses the side of her neck. “Stranger loves than theirs have prevailed. I recall a tall woman with bronzed armor and a length of rope that she used to yank a poor shackled knight across the countryside—”_

_“You were not_ yanked.”

_“I must disagree.”_

_“Well you should have walked faster.”_

_He snorts and rubs her belly with his stump._

_“Are you jealous?”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“You’re proud of having sworn yourself to her, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if he wants to do the same, that’s his right.”_

_“His reasons are not pure,” she mutters darkly, and Jaime snorts into her ear._

_“Neither were mine, when I asked to serve under your command. And yet here we are. Would you rather I had played the gentleman and—”_

_She kisses him to make him stop talking, even though he’s still snickering into her mouth and she has to bite him to make him stop, and then a few minutes later he’s asleep beside her, breathing heavy and low against her collarbone, and she turns her head and watches his dear familiar face twitch with dreams until she herself is asleep._

_And when Lady Sansa tells her the Hound will be protecting her, Brienne wants to offer an objection or an alternative or something else, anything else, wants to keep this rough grizzled hulk of a man away from her vulnerable lady—_

_But though she wants to give Sansa the mother’s strength lost with Lady Catelyn, she knows it’s not hers to give, not to that extent, not to Sansa. She’ll have her own children to guide and warn and forbid, but Sansa is not hers, much as she feels like it sometimes. And Jaime is right (damn him), she’s not stupid or sick or untested, if she wants to—if she wants this, she has the right to try and—it’s her decision._

_(But if the Hound hurts her, Brienne will hunt down that giant bastard and_ fuck him up.)

* * *

So it’s been almost a month now, and Brienne has had nothing to do but be pregnant. Wake up pregnant, piss pregnant, eat pregnant, read pregnant, talk pregnant, sleep pregnant, do it all again. Pregnant.

Having gulped down the icy-cold water, she drops the empty skin on top of Ser Dummy the Second and goes over to kick Ser Dummy the Third over onto the wet pile of straw that is Ser Dummy the First. The water has given her enough stamina to spend maybe ten more minutes sparring with the post of the stable door, and then she’ll have to tidy all the destroyed dummies back into the corner and find a way to sneak back inside without being caught.

_Easy enough when you’re six feet three inches tall and currently twice as wide._

She really has gotten truly vast, her stomach practically another person riding around in front of her. How can she be anything other than her condition when it enters the room before she does? And though it’s not as bad as she’d fantasized about—there is no open laughter, no grotesque miming (at least not to her face), no mockery quite so bold—she can’t help feeling that everything she was known for as a warrior is now being undermined by how clearly she must be known as a mother, her feats of strength with the sword and on the field and through her honor all drifting away because at the end of the day she’s pregnant now and real knights aren’t pregnant. Real knights don’t need to sneak away from their minders just to train with sparring dummies. Real knights can take care of themselves.

And again, she knows how ungrateful she sounds, even in her own head, she knows it’s not fair to any of them _(and especially not Jaime)_ , she knows if this were someone else she’d be disgusted with this attitude, she knows she know she knows.

But—but that’s the thing, it’s not someone else, it’s _her_ , and for most of her adult life it’s only ever been _her_ , alone, on one road or another, seeking purpose and promise and pledges but never letting anything in beneath her own armor. She’d served Renly and Lady Catelyn, schlepped Jaime Lannister across half the cow pastures in Westeros, been a prisoner and a guest and a rescuer and a vigil-keeper and had a squire and sworn herself to a lady and joined an army and even so, with all she lost and gained, at the end of the day _she_ was the only one she trusted to take care of Brienne, to manage the responsibility of _her_ , body and mind and soul, and it was fine because she knew she could at least be enough for herself.

And then Jaime, and all of it, and now he’s worse than a nervous septa, worrying day and night, having her tailed, bringing her food, walking on eggshells around her like the slightest movement could shake the babes loose. He’s treating her like she’s a delicate flower, which she always thought must have been so lovely for the girls who were prettier than her and got swept off their feet by knights, except now that she’s living the experience she finds it’s one she’s not particularly keen on, and as much as she realizes Jaime is just trying to protect her and their children and the family he’s finally getting the chance to have, she wishes he would take a night off every once in a while.

_A Lannister always pays their debts. And apparently you can fuck a Lannister into debt. Who knew?_

Again, that’s not fair. It’s taken the better part of a year for her to accept the truth, but she knows now that she could have turned Jaime away that night, turned him away again the next, rebuffed him once and for all by letting Tormund Giantsbane play out his crude courting, and as much as it would have hurt him, he would not have abandoned her. He would have cared for her as best he knew how, as best she would let him, even if she’d told him it would never happen, even if he’d truly believed that there was no chance of getting laid. Because there hadn’t been, for the longest time, the two of them wandering around with their heads up their arses, and yet they’d been there for each other. Been there stupidly, and clumsily, and sometimes meanly and waspishly—but Jaime was not responsible for her, he had no obligation to save her from rapers or a bear, or to fit her with armor and a sword, and yet he kept doing these things, kept taking care of her and helping her and thinking of her for no reason, driving her crazy in a way that settled in her bones, and she kept wanting and trying to do the same for him, and by the time they figured out all that shit was just their own convoluted way of being totally fucking stupid for each other, there was nothing they could do about it.

Not just _her_ anymore, or _him._ Time and distance and the inadequacy of words had failed again and again to undermine what they had, and now, even if she misses that absolute freedom that comes with loneliness, she never once thinks to choose it over Jaime. Because in choosing Jaime, in letting him love her and treat her as though she were worth loving, she is actually choosing herself more thoroughly than she ever has before. This is a world where love itself can feel like a luxury, so loving and being loved in a way that finally makes sense of the songs and the tales and the pain is a blessing, that’s what it really is, and she shares the space of her own beating heart with Jaime Lannister and loves him down to her bones and deeper.

But he’s still being really fucking annoying right now. 

* * *

_“I’ll hurt them.”_

_“You won’t!”_

_“But what if I do? What if I crush them, or suffocate them, or bump them somehow—”_

_“What, with your cock? Trust me, Jaime, it’s not_ that _big.”_

_“Brienne—”_

_She groans and jams the pillow over her head, blocking out the sight of his stupid earnest face and the sound of his stupid earnest voice. If he would just make fun of her, call her wanton or sex-crazed or tell her to go roll around in the snow. That’s what they do, where they started, pick at each other (well mostly him picking at her) and sling insults and taunts and find their way to trust through the absence of lies or pretense. Except now he’s all_ sincere _, and it makes her want to kill him._

 _“I don’t even_ want _to anymore!” she snarls as she yanks the pillow back, interrupting whatever calm, sensible thing he was saying, and the surprise on his face is very satisfying._

_“That’s not what—”_

_“That’s exactly what_ you _want, isn’t it? For me to lie here like a small mountain and just let you fret in circles around my stomach, not speak, not bother you, not_ get in the way _—”_

_“I don’t want that,” he says sharply, and she glares up at him where he’s sitting beside her on the bed, half-undressed, breeches low on his hips and boots on the floor, his hair in need of cutting. She’s lying on her back with her shoulders propped on a couple pillows, wearing only an oversized tunic and an aura of rage._

_“Then fuck me.”_

_“You said you didn’t want to anymore.”_

_“I didn’t really want to in the first place,” she huffs, and he raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t! My back hurts and my tits hurt and my legs hurt, I can barely move and I already have to piss again, the last thing I want is to heave myself around like a beast and pretend not to notice that you can’t even_ find _it by now—”_

_“If you don’t want me to fuck you, why would you spend the last ten minutes trying to goad me into it?” Jaime demands, flinging his hand up in a surge of exasperation._

_“Because I can’t take another night of this!”_

_Her voice cracks, damn it, it never used to do that, not before this idiot put his children inside her._

_“Of what?” he asks, eyes wide, like he really has no idea._

_“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the way you touch me like I’m about to shatter into a thousand pieces. Or the staring at this huge swollen_ thing _, which is the only part of me that seems to matter these days. Or the reverent silence that makes me think you can’t even remember my name anymore. It’s Brienne of Tarth, by the way, and I may not be able to get out of bed or wash my own feet without help but I’m a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,_ you _knighted me, and you also married me, if you’ll recall, and this can’t be the only thing I am anymore, Jaime, it just can’t, I haven’t disappeared, I’m still here!”_

_She’s managed to avoid crying, even though her whole head aches and her cheeks burn, and she’s kept his gaze this whole time, so she’s watched how his face has crumpled bit by bit and now he looks horribly guilty and yet still somehow is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, it’s really not fucking fair._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Oh shut up.” She rolls her eyes to hide the way her lip trembles._

_“I am. Truly. For—"_

_“Treating me like an invalid? Or a sick old woman? Or a dairy cow?"_

_“Ignoring you,” he says quietly. “It’s a mistake I spent years paying for the first time around. I should know better.”_

_“You never know better,” she mutters, and out of the corner of her eye she catches a flicker of a smile on his face._

_“True enough. But you’re a knight and a warrior and a hero, and more than that you’re the most capable person I know and I bloody love you, so I might as well act like it.”_

_“Oh Gods,” she groans, and struggles to sit up higher on the pillows. He offers a hand and she grudgingly takes it, pushing on him to scoot her bulk backwards. She knows she’s not socially gifted, that at any given time she’s snappish or sullen or stiff, in contrast to Jaime, who glides through the world like a swan on water, charming and well-behaved when he wants to be but far preferring to exercise his wit and scorn in the way only really attractive people are allowed to. But when they’re alone together, she doesn’t give him quarter for being pretty (not outside of bed, anyway) and he doesn’t accept being brushed off, and so usually they communicate in insults and arguments and generally have a great time doing it, and ever since she got pregnant and big he’s been all calm and sweet with her and she hates it, it’s not them._

_“You_ do _act like it, Jaime, I didn’t—”_

_“No, you’re right, I’m an obsessive.” He eyes her stomach, vast and round. “You don’t stop being Brienne just because you’re with child. It’s just—it’s hard, sometimes, I never used to be able to—get close.”_

_He’s not trying to make her feel guilty, she knows him too well for that, but she still does. Feel guilty. Tommen and Myrcella and even monstrous Joffrey, three children born and gone, snatched from under Jaime’s watch while he’d been forced to stand to the side, no real kind of father. She’s been carrying his twins for almost eight months, of course he’s nervous and obsessed, of course he worries and watches. She worries too, but she can never get away from it and the bigger she gets the less time she has to focus on worrying because she’s spending most moments being cranky and exhausted and sick of the shooting pains radiating up her back and down her legs. It’s not his fault he’s not the one carrying the babes, and as much as she wants to blame him and rage at him, Brienne of Tarth does not attack the innocent._

_(Not unless they ask for it, like that one time, shortly after they’d gotten married in the godswood, when he’d come down her throat and then used his fingers and tongue to light her up until she almost wept, but even as she was still gasping and shaking with tremors she’d grabbed his head in her hands and told him that she wanted to do it again, right now, on the same sheets with dried sweat and come on them, if he could get it up she wanted it, and he’d asked her why and she’d kissed him and said “Because I do,” and he’d mumbled something about not using a lady simply to take his own pleasure and she’d whispered that he was a moron and she wanted it, hard, deep, wanted all of him, and he’d gone red and quiet and all heavy breathing and he’d said “I want to give it to you” and she’d swallowed through a dry throat and said “Will you let me take it” and his eyes had widened and he’d nodded and she’d buried her face in his neck and murmured the words that made him go weak and soft and then she’d only tied him down with knots he could slip if he had to, and by the time she was done he’d lost his voice and there were tears on his cheeks and he was weak and soft in a whole new way, floating in her arms, making her feel like a marauding lioness sated by a kill, her own body singing, a triumphant predator for the first time in her life._

_This is different than that though. But now she's thinking about it. Damn it, maybe she_ does _want him to fuck her. If only her tits didn't actually hurt so much._ )

_“I’m sorry too,” she says, and he frowns._

_“For what?”_

_“For trying to make you fuck me.”_

_Now he just looks confused. “Well, that—I was worried it might hurt the babes, that’s why I didn’t leap at—Brienne, let’s be clear, fucking you is the very first item on the list of things I will_ always _do voluntarily.”_

_She snorts and reaches out to cup his cheek. It’s rough with stubble. Maybe when she cuts his hair she can give him a shave too._

_“And I appreciate it. But our bed shouldn’t be used to prove anything, it wasn’t fair of me to do that. And the truth is, I don’t think I’d enjoy it very much anyway. My back really is sore.”_

_“Let me work on it,” he says immediately, and even though she still feels a bit sulky about the situation Jaime does give great massages with his good hand and stump, and that would hit the spot right about now. She sighs and leans forward as much as she can, which isn’t much at all, but it’s enough to let Jaime crawl behind her and get his fingers and stump digging down into her tense muscles, and she groans at the pain that comes before the relief._

_“I wanted to—do something normal, I guess,” she admits, rocking back against his strong knuckles. "It’s been so long since I’ve felt like myself, and I’m just so tired. I want it to be like before.”_

_“Do you mean when you were fucking me three times a day and twice at night?” he murmurs into her shoulder. She rolls her eyes._

_“I mean before there was even talk of children, and you weren’t so soppy about the whole thing. When it was just us…”_

_“Walking through the Riverlands, pissing in bushes, murdering rapers, getting along like old chums.”_

_“Idiot,” she snorts, and Jaime kisses her ear as he digs into one of the worst knots. “Are you going to keep hovering over me?”_

_“Probably. But I’ll try to remember to use your name once in a while, and the soppiness will be tempered with insults about your temper and the size of your feet.”_

_“That’s all I ask.”_

* * *

“Ser! Ser!”

_Fuck._

Even as Brienne comes out of the lunge, she’s steeling herself for what she’ll see when she turns around: Podrick Payne, his round face pinched with concern, wringing his hands as he approaches her through the derelict barn.

She’s right on all counts. He looks her up and down, as though checking she still has the babes inside her. His stocky frame is in nervous motion, and he radiates anxiety.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you, ser, we didn’t know if you might need help or—”

“Do I look like I need help, Pod?” She gives her sword a casual heft, hoping he doesn’t notice the sweat beading on her forehead.

“No, of course not, but—well, I didn’t want you to be alone if something should happen,” he says sheepishly, and Brienne’s annoyance fades. He's a good lad, through and through, even when she's annoyed with him.

“I know,” she sighs, and sheathes Oathkeeper, silently mourning the loss of her last few minutes of freedom. “Help me get all this cleaned up and we’ll go inside.”

“Right away, ser!” he chirps, face brightening, and he proceeds to tidy up Ser Dummies First through Third, using an old pitchfork and his own feet to shove the straw back into a corner. Brienne shivers, much colder not that she’s not moving, and watches Pod busily scuttle around, diligent as ever. She feels a surge of affection for her squire, loyal to her through rudeness and excoriation and brutal swordplay lessons and weeks waiting for a candle to burn and pregnant rebellion. She relies on him in a way she never has with anyone else, except for Jaime, and even then it’s different. Pod makes her want to be stronger and softer all at once, a teacher and a friend.

“You look well, Pod,” she tells him, and he grins when he looks up from the last of the stray straw. “Maybe Jaime’s right and you _have_ been getting enough to eat.”

“I try, ser,” he says as he trots back over. She squints down at him: he _does_ look well, a little less baby fat and a little more muscle, ruddy cheeks, clean hair.

“How did you know to come find me out here?” she asks, turning and beginning the walk back towards the Great Keep. “I thought it was a fairly clever hiding place.”

“Oh…I just looked around,” he says with his head down. Brienne glances sideways at her squire, who has many fine qualities but cannot count either discretion or good acting among them.

“Pod? Have you been here with…”

Pod is blushing, staring straight ahead, and Brienne isn’t going to push him if he doesn’t want to talk, everything he’s told her about this has been freely volunteered and received with quiet understanding.

“Yes. We—we go out there sometimes, just to—talk.”

She doesn’t say what she’s thinking, which is that there are much warmer places to talk.

Pod swallows, hunched up inside his furred cloak, and Brienne rubs her stomach idly as they pick their way through the icy grounds, careful to avoid snow that has deceptively frozen over. The babes are moving less now that she’s stopped swinging her sword, but she can still feel them shifting, the one wedged up under her ribs in particular.

“He asked if I’d like to share his room,” Pod says quietly.

 _Crunch, crunch, crunch,_ the snow beneath their feet.

“There’s a lot of men sharing already, just to get out of the barracks, and…it wouldn’t look so strange, is what I mean,” he continues. The babe under Brienne’s ribs is doing some kind of slow stretch that makes her feel a little sick.

“You would still need to be very careful.”

“I know, ser.”

“The North is not like King’s Landing,” she says slowly, “but with all of us crammed so close together, and people already prone to whispering…”

“Yes, ser.”

“Pod.”

He stops when he realizes she’s stopped, and he turns back to her, face red, eyes down. “Pod,” she says again, and he looks up at her. “There is nothing wrong with loving a good person.”

He nods. Brienne swallows and forces herself not to knead at the spot where the right-hand babe is pushing on her pelvis. “Do you understand me?”

“I do, ser.” Pod’s voice is still quiet and low, just as it had been when he first brought up Cam Cerwyn, the youngest brother of Lord Cley, who had fought the dead on the right flank and nearly gotten his foot chewed off by a wight and whom Pod had met when they ended up in bunks next to each other in the long work chamber that had been converted into makeshift soldiers’ barracks.

That first time, Brienne had been totally out of her depth, unsure how to have any conversation about male feelings that didn’t begin with Jaime coaxing her out of her shell. Her next thought after the initial shock had been somewhat uncharitable.

 _First Renly, now Pod, why do they always end up with_ me?

Immediately she’d felt terrible, her heart pulsing painfully at the thought of good, generous, loving Renly, who had trusted a huge unlikable woman when no one else would and had died in her arms, betrayed and murdered by his own brother. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t wanted her, or any women at all, and it hadn’t changed what he’d done for her. He’d been a good man, and she’d been proud to pledge herself to him, even as brief as it was.

But this was now the second time Brienne found herself entangled with a man who apparently wanted to love and lie with other men, and it wasn’t just any man, it was Pod, _Podrick Payne_ , her squire, who she thought she knew better than anyone—and who, it should be mentioned, was supposed to be incredibly popular amongst the _female_ brothel workers in King’s Landing, if Tyrion Lannister was to be believed.

_(He usually wasn’t, but when it came to him praising the power of a cock other than his own, Brienne couldn’t imagine he would do it for any reason other than undeniable truth.)_

She’d stared at him blankly, and for a moment he’d looked petrified, like he expected her to hit him or spit on him or shout aloud what he’d told her, that he and Cam—Cam and he—they felt for each other, the way a lord was supposed to—but though neither of them were ladies, it still—and he wasn’t sure what to do, wasn’t sure if something was wrong, _he_ was wrong, he’d never looked at another boy or man in this way, never, maybe it was a sickness or some kind of sour magic from the Long Night, and they were both scared, but it wasn’t going away, so—

But then she’d finally gathered her wits enough to ask, “And he treats you with respect?”

Pod had frozen, taken a breath, then nodded rapidly, yes, he did, and he was intelligent and strong and gave Pod his woolen socks when the nights were coldest, and then after a few minutes of infatuated babbling Brienne had finally cleared her throat and said, “Well, he sounds like a good man, and you’re a good man, so…so, uh, good, then,” and Pod had nodded and blushed and they’d gone their separate ways.

But he’d brought it up every once in a while, quietly and only to her, sometimes asking advice _(“Is it silly to give him a good bottle of wine I found downstairs for his name day, will that be too much, will he laugh”)_ , sometimes sharing worries _(“His older brother wants him married to some Hornwood girl, and he doesn’t like me, he thinks I’m a southerner who can’t be trusted and he told Cam we shouldn’t be friends”)_ , sometimes just saying the things that a person in love wants to say to someone they trust _(“Cam can be such a bloody idiot sometimes, ser”)_. She asked once, warily, if he was speaking to anyone else about their—situation, and Pod’s eyes had widened and he’d shaken his head frantically, like the thought itself was frightening, and it made her feel both proud and worried at the same time. It’s a big responsibility and she’s afraid of steering him wrong, missing something important, just—not doing it right.

But she’s listened and nodded and kept the secret, even from Jaime, and so far that’s all Pod really seems to need.

Now, standing there in the snow as the temperature drops along with the weak Northern sun, Brienne gives in to her natural urge _(which is another pregnancy thing, being all gooey and handsy)_ and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, trying to ground him. She knows how it can feel, a loving heart that beats against more than its own cage, the world heavy and cruel on the outside.

“You don’t have to share his be—his room if you don’t want to.”

“I do,” he says earnestly, and she nods.

“Then go, leave the barracks. But make sure the other lads think you’re coming down with something, a wet cold, and the maester said it might be thick air.”

“Thick air, ser?”

“I don’t know, he said it to me once when I told him I couldn’t breathe sleeping on my back,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t think they actually know what they’re talking about half the time. But tell them it’s thick air or crowded sleep or something like that, just give them a reason to think the maester’s ordered you out. And Pod?”

“Yes, ser?” he says, eyes still big, so much a boy and yet twice the man he was when they first met.

“I—I’m glad for you,” she mumbles, forcing herself to look him in the eye. He smiles, just a little, and nods. “You’re a good person too, and you deserve to, um, be...loved.”

She lets the moment linger as long as she can stand before it’s all too much for her and she has to pull away and start stomping back to the castle, her cheeks red, her stomach huge, her heart glowing a little. As Pod hustles to catch up with her he starts whistling, a cheery sound in the frozen North, and even though Brienne isn’t sure he knows what the tune means to her she still smiles to herself when she hears the familiar refrain.

_He licked the honey from her hair…_

* * *

_The night before she leaves to join Renly’s camp, Brienne has dinner with her father._

_Selwyn is a man who tends to confuse most people. They’re already overwhelmed by his height—at almost seven feet tall he controls a room just by walking into it—but he’s got a big personality, loud laughter and sly jokes and boring stories he likes to use to confound people who take things too seriously. But when the turn comes, and it always comes, the lightness disappears and his full weight settles on whoever he’s with and then it comes through, the strength of a Stormlands lord, bold like thunder and dangerous like lightning._

_Brienne’s not scared of him, hasn’t been for years. It helps that she’s one of the few people tall enough to even attempt to look him in the eye. They’ve always been close, even through that ghastly period of two or three years where he was determined to marry her off and she was even more determined to die before letting that happen, and after he finally realized that his own stubbornness and her mother’s talent for calmly waiting out emotional sieges were both very present in their daughter, Selwyn had called truce and given Brienne the respect due a worthy opponent. He never whipped her for disobeying or disrespect, and she never made a show of how much she loathed the whole courtly farce, and together they behaved and trusted each other._

_But tonight he looks concerned, drawn, and Brienne knows something’s coming._

_She refuses to pick nervously at her food, instead shoveling down as much of the good flaky white fish as she can manage. She knows she’s in for camp rations soon, scarce and flavored with weevils, and she may not be a delicate dainty lady but she’ll miss good meals and plans to make the most of this one. Even if her father is trying to ruin it by staring at her and pursing his lips._

_“Did you want to tell me you’d miss me, father?” she asks finally, sick of the silence, willing to poke him at least into speaking. “Or that you’ve tried to arrange one last marriage to keep me here?”_

_“Yes, you’ll be marrying Old Hermel,” he replies, and she can’t help but snort indelicately into her food._

_“Now_ there’s _a man who might be willing to have me.”_

 _“Brienne,” he says in a heavy voice, and she cringes._ So much for banter. _“If you really plan to do this—”_

_“I do.”_

_“I know,” he sighs, and she refuses to feel bad for making him worry._

_“He’ll be a wonderful king, Father.”_

_“I don’t doubt it,” he says, a little too flippantly for her taste. “But the King is not concerned with who governs Tarth and sits in Evenfall, and we are.”_

_She swallows the fish around a sudden lump in her throat. The succession issue. Gods, she’d been clinging to the slim hope that he really would let her leave without discussing it. “Father—”_

_“I’m proud of you,” Selwyn says, finally looking her in the eye, and she doesn’t doubt it. He may have fought her at times, cursed her, cursed the Gods for sending such a willful and uncooperative daughter, but he’s always valued courage and determination beyond propriety, and once she’d started training and stuck to it he’d looked at her with the kind of respect she’d given up on earning through pretty dresses and graceful curtsies._

_“Thank you.”_

_“I’m proud of you, and I love you, and there’s no doubt in my mind you’ll serve your Renly above and beyond.” She makes a face:_ he’s not _my_ Renly. _“But if you will do what a son would do, and go lay your life on the line for the sake of another family, then I must do what I can to protect my own family. Our family.”_

_She stabs at the vegetables on her plate with her fork. Cross, parry, lunge. “Will you disinherit me?”_

_“Not unless I have to,” he says plainly. “You are my daughter, my firstborn, my true heir. But you are going off to war, and so rather than be left with my one heir—absent,” he swallows around the word, “I have a duty to forge another link in the chain. You understand?”_

_Brienne nods, though she looks down at her plate as she does so. She understands, she has for years. The endless parade of women who come through her father’s rooms—women from the household staff, women from town, women who arrive with sailors—would have been hard to hide, and Selwyn doesn’t particularly try. Rather, he treats his…_ consorts _like family friends who have stopped in for a visit, housing them for weeks or months and bringing them to the dining table to chat amiably in the evenings. Brienne’s gotten very used to them, and for the most part they’re all pleasant enough. The ones who make a big show of eyeing her and whispering questions about the young lady (?) never last long, and her father is in a much better mood when he’s got one of them around._

_And now he’ll be looking to get a son from them. She wonders which one. Not a pirate’s wench or a shepherdess, no, even her father isn’t so lax about station and formal status. Maybe the daughter of a marble merchant, a well-to-do family in town, or even imported from the mainland, a Stormlands lass whose family has a good claim to some fertile land near the coast. Her father is shrewd enough to consider that._

_“It’s not personal, Brienne,” he tells her now, and she snorts. Of course it’s not. It never is, when you’re a woman in the world._

_“You have to protect our island,” she answers, reassuring. “Tarth should never be handed off to someone who doesn’t love it, who doesn’t know it. Any children you make will be born to the island, just as I was. They’ll take care of it.”_

_“You’ll be taking care of it, even if you aren’t here,” he says, and his voice is suddenly hoarse and cracked and when she looks up his eyes are misty and red and it’s strange, Father doesn’t cry, she doesn’t really like it._

_“I’ll be serving Renly.” She clears her throat and takes another bite of fish. He smiles, nods, blinks back the emotion._

_“I know he’s already wed Margaery Tyrell, but perhaps you’ll finally meet the man who can best you with a sword among his ranks. Then you can return with both honor and a husband.”_

_“Dare to dream, Father,” she says blandly, and his laugh booms over her._

* * *

Surprisingly, Brienne doesn’t get in much trouble for giving her minders the slip.

_(Of course she doesn’t, knights don’t get in trouble like errant children, just let them try.)_

Supper is short this evening, because they’re planning for visitors on the morrow. The Dragon Queen is coming up from Moat Caillin with Tyrion and Varys in tow, and Brienne has a sinking feeling that the counsel will involve a lot of proposals that are not really proposals, like marching on King’s Landing right now and using the dragons to melt the Red Keep around Cersei’s ears. It’s understandable that she’s getting restless, after all the time and loss, but the fact is that winters in Westeros last years at a time, and not even a Dragon Queen can burn down the sky.

_She might try, though, Gods help us._

But thankfully it means most people don’t linger tonight, just stuff themselves with meat that the Dragon Queen will soon be commandeering for her beasts and then scurry off to bed. Brienne and Pod come in early enough to get some good cuts of goat in their stew, and they’re already leaving just as Lady Sansa enters, accompanied by the Hound. Brienne tries not to glare at him, standing so close to _her_ lady, like she belongs to him, like—

“Ser Brienne, you were missed this afternoon,” Sansa says, going for light and coming off nervous. “Are you all right?”

“I was out walking, my lady, forgive me,” Brienne mumbles. The Hound snorts and eyes her round belly.

“More like out rolling.”

“Sandor,” Sansa admonishes, too gently for Brienne’s taste. The Hound glances down at her and his ugly face goes all warm. Brienne literally bites her tongue.

She bids Pod good night once they reach the barracks, reminding him with a look to be careful in his move to… “new quarters.” He grins back at her, a bit too cocky for her liking, but disappears into the barracks with a spring in his step. She wonders if he’ll take his things and go to Cam’s room sometime tonight, or if he’ll be able to wait and do it tomorrow, which might be smarter. She’s never met Cam, never thought to ask, she isn’t even sure what he looks like, but the way his name makes Pod’s eyes light up just—well, her heart aches a little bit now, for Pod and with Pod and for and with a lot of other things, and then she heads back to her own room, waddling on tired legs, and when she opens the door she’s hit with warmth and the crackle of fire and the familiar smell of Jaime’s favorite black currant tea.

Gods, she did spend most of the day trying to get away from him and his cronies but the sight of Jaime sitting by the fire with a mug of tea on the arm of his chair and a map spread out on his lap, using a charcoal pencil to draw careful lines and squinting seriously down at them in the firelight, safe and warm here in the room that’s theirs, totally theirs, they don’t have to hide or pretend to be brothers in arms or lie about maesters in order to share a bed, he’s here, he _loves_ her, he’s _Jaime,_ and all of it just makes something hot and fierce and tight bloom up in her chest out of nowhere and he barely has a chance to look up before she’s striding over and grabbing his head in both her hands and pressing it against hard against her giant stomach, wanting him close to her and their children and the place where her heart beats.

“Uh,” he says after a second, the sound muffled by the curve of her belly. “Everything all right?”

“I love you,” she says fiercely, looking down at where her fingers are buried in his soft, sandy hair. “I know I can be a stubborn pain in the arse sometimes, although you’re generally much worse, but the point is, I love you, and I want you here, with me, always, and—and—and that’s it.”

He tilts his head back, still in the tight grip of her hands but just enough so that she can see his green eyes shining up at her over the steep curve of her stomach, the smile on his mouth invisible where it’s pressed tight against her but the smile in those eyes warm like fire.

“You couldn’t just say nice things,” he mumbles into her tunic. “You had to qualify it with that bit about me being—”

“Well you _are_ , right now, that’s exactly what—”

“But you want me here anyways, so who’s worse, really,” he says, and rubs his nose against the place where her belly button used to be before it all stretched tight and popped out. She sighs and strokes his hair, eyes slipping closed, enjoying the warm puff of his breath on the bare patch of skin where her tunic’s ridden up.

“Brienne? Can you let go of my head now?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I’d rather you not either, but the angle’s giving me a bit of a crick in my neck.”

Reluctantly, she looses her hold on his head and he leans back, smile all the way visible now. His hand comes up and presses flat against the side of her stomach, right where one of the babes has had its foot pressed hard against her skin for weeks now.

“What brought all that on?” he asks, using his hook to snag his mug of tea and bring it to his lips. He’s really gotten quite adept with that thing, in fact these days it can be almost easy to forget that he doesn’t have two full hands.

_(Swordplay, writing, and fucking. The hook doesn’t help with those.)_

“Nothing,” she shrugs, ruffling his hair one last time before turning and stumping over to the bed. She sinks down onto it with a great gusty sigh, her poor feet singing praise to rest, and begins trying to take off her boots without using her hands. It’s a skill she and Jaime have both perfected now, out of different kinds of necessity.

“I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t approve. By all means, manhandle me whenever and however you want, Ser Brienne, especially when you pair it with words of love. But if there’s something I did to earn it, I’d like to know, so that the next time I piss you off I can repeat the gesture and make amends.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I suppose today was the first time in recent memory that you or someone under your command weren’t following me around like pigs after a slop bucket. Maybe I felt a little lonely.”

“Nobody’s ‘under my command,’” he protests, and she gives him the same kind of look that she’d given him once upon a time when he asked whether Tormund Giantsbane had grown on her. He has the decency to look at least a little abashed. “It’s not as though I’ve press-ganged anyone. They all care for you very much on their own, they just want—”

“To catch the babies if they fall out, I know,” she responds drily as the second boot comes off. Jaime shakes his head at her and folds up his map, setting it aside on the long table across the room from the fireplace. He starts to undress as well, both of them slowly stripping off layers of leather and fur and wool, his hook and her giant pregnant belly eliciting soft grunts of effort and the occasional shake of a stubborn button.

“You’re not under lock and key,” he tells her as he shuffles out of his tunic. “This whole afternoon, no one knew where you were, did I send out hounds to chase you down?”

“No, just Podrick.” She huffs, pulling off the thick breeches with the enlarged waistline that Lady Sansa altered for her. They’re baggy in some places and tight in others, only so capable of being suited to a pregnant woman’s body _(and one of her size)_ , and not for the first time Brienne has a crazy moment where she considers wearing dresses, just until these bloody children are born.

“Yes but he wasn’t under instructions to bring you back, just to keep an eye on you.”

“You know what you sound like?”

“A concerned husband?”

“A paranoid septa. Or a crazed lord trying to protect his daughter’s chastity.”

“It’s a bit late for that.”

She rolls her eyes as she lowers herself into bed, the belly threatening to tip her sideways or forwards or crush her backwards. Jaime catches her hip as she comes down, helping her settle down on her right side. It’s the only position she can sleep in without suffocating or getting nauseous, and it has the added bonus of leaving Jaime’s good hand free when he lies down behind her and molds his body to hers, warm skin from head to foot, his knees tucked up against hers, her hips cradled against his, her tired back relaxed into the solidness of his chest. He likes to rub her hip or shoulder until she falls asleep, a soothing circular motion that feels like waves, and sometimes he’ll detour to put his hand on her stomach and the babes are generally very independent-minded about when and why they move, they won’t be coerced or quieted _(much like their parents)_ , but in the evening, like clockwork, Jaime will run his hand across the red-streaked, sensitive, taut-stretched skin of her stomach and the babes will kick kick kick, hard little patters inside her.

“Well, when Tyrion arrives with the Dragon Queen tomorrow, you can get his help drawing up another security detail,” she deadpans, adjusting herself on the mattress. Jaime scoffs as he unbuttons his breeches and steps out of them, leaving them both in thin shifts.

“Why yes, I _am_ looking forward to seeing my brother, how kind of you to ask.”

“I didn’t have to ask, I’ll be glad to see him too.” She sounds earnest and she is, because strangely enough, she does miss Tyrion. He’s funny and intelligent and a good foil for his older brother, and when he oversteps he accepts the slap of reprimand with good grace. She also knows how much Jaime misses his brother, and while she might tease, she’s glad they’ll have a chance to catch up. At the very least it will distract Jaime from his quest to keep her under surveillance.

“Is it really so bad, to have someone be concerned for you?” he asks, turning down the covers on his side. She snorts and pulls down her thin shift so it covers her ass where she’s exposed to the cold air.

“It’s bloody annoying, is what it is. You’re an old worrywart, that’s all, though I suppose it could be worse.”

“I would do anything to protect you,” he whispers in his ear now as he settles in behind her. It’s a sweet sentence, but there’s something bitter in the way he says it, something harsh and dark that digs into her sleepy sense of peace like iron spurs into a horse’s flank.

The fire is dying out, ashes raked, wood neatly re-piled, and Brienne watches the orange-red reflection flicker against the glass of their window. He bites her shoulder gently and speaks with strange breathlessness into her skin. “I mean it, Brienne, I would set the whole North on fire to keep you and our children safe.”

His hand is on her hip, gripping, protective. She reaches down and wraps her fingers around his wrist.

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“You wouldn’t have a choice.”

“Yes I would. I’m stronger than you.”

“Thank the Gods.”

“I protect myself, Jaime. I protect both of us, all of us. There’s no need to think of fire.”

A tremor goes through him. She rubs the top of his hand with her thumb.

“I can’t help it.” His voice is choked, hoarse. “It’s all I know, it’s how I work, when I worry about you—when I start to think of what could happen I go mad, I want to pull you into bed and raise an army to keep you there—"

“I would cut you down,” she whispers. “I would fight like the knight you made me.”

“Of course you would, because you’re no prisoner, you’re no captive, you’re _Brienne_ , and you can protect people with your honor intact.”

“Jaime—”

“Why am I like this?” he gasps, and his nails are digging into her, and even though he’s not touching her stomach the babes are starting to kick, like they can sense his agitation, and it’s making her heart pound. “Why can’t I turn it off, why is love is doing anything, killing anything, betraying anything, if it saves the ones who matter—”

“Love is never asking such things of the ones who matter. Love is trust, Jaime, trust me.”

“I do,” he says. She grabs his hand and moves it to her belly, right where the kicking is hardest, and he sucks in a shaky breath and buries his face in her hair.

“ _Trust me._ ”

“I do, I—”

“Swear to me.”

“I trust you with my life and the life of my children and the rising of the sun, Brienne, I swear it on my own godforsaken House,” and he’s making those slow circles with his hand now, and the babes are moving less frenetically, not pummeling her so much as poking her, and Brienne closes her eyes and lets herself be surrounded by it all.

“I trust you with the same, Jaime. It’s up to you what you do with it.”

The fire is still glowing dimly when she falls asleep.

**301 Days**

* * *

Brienne tries to be good and take it easy the next day. She really really does. Jaime asks her to, with the big puppy-dog eyes and the dopey little half-frown he knows makes her all melty, and before he leaves to go down to the kitchens and help Hanna prepare for the Dragon Queen’s arrival he kisses her on the forehead and asks _again_ , that she please at least try to rest some more today, stay off her feet, not because he thinks she’s weak but because it’s good for the babes and probably good for her, just in general, and then he has to stop talking because she shoves him out the door and nearly closes it on his foot.

But the taste of freedom yesterday was too sweet, and after everything with Podrick and with Jaime, she just—she can’t keep sitting around _resting_ , like a lazy Essosi slavemaster who sends others scuttling away to fetch things for them. She’s so pregnant she can’t see the ground five feet in front of her, she slept for eight hours and is still exhausted, and if she has to spend the day on her ass again she’s going to snap and do something drastic.

So she does something only slightly less drastic, and goes to Lady Sansa.

“Please, my lady,” she practically begs, trying to ignore the smugness radiating from the Hound where he stands behind Sansa in her study. “I’ll take inventory, I’ll herd sheep, I’ll clean walls. Just give me something to do.”

Sansa bites her lip, frowning. “Did the midwife say—”

“Gilly says I’m not due for at least a few weeks,” Brienne says, blushing as the words come out, because she’s never once lied to her lady, ever, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “As long as I’m staying warm enough and sitting down if I get pains in my back—please, my lady, I need to be useful.”

“Hard to be useful when you look like you’ve had a boulder for breakfast,” the Hound snickers. Sansa turns and glares at him.

“When you mock Ser Brienne, you mock me as her lady. Is that your intention, Sandor?”

“No milady,” he says, stricken. It’s Brienne’s turn to smirk, at least until Sansa turns back to her, brow still furrowed.

“I _was_ going to send someone to sort through some of the weapons and armor the Essosi left with us when they went to the other holdfasts, in case the Dragon Queen wants to bring anything back. But it’s down in the crypts with a lot of other things in storage, and sending you down there alone—”

“Podrick can come with me!” Brienne interrupts, too excited at the prospect of getting to spend the day around weapons and armor to remember her best manners. “He can help, he’s got a good head for numbers.”

Sansa frowns. “…no, he doesn’t.”

“All right, no, he doesn’t,” Brienne admits. “But he’s a hard worker and he’ll do what’s asked of him—without forgetting his place and taking liberties,” she adds before she can stop herself, looking at the Hound just long enough to get her point across, and he bristles.

“You’d still be doing your work here, woman, if you hadn’t spread your legs for the Kingslayer first chance you got.”

“I wasn’t speaking to you, Clegane, but maybe you misheard, what with only the _one ear_.”

“I had a fever and you hit me with a fuckin’ rock!”

“I was trying to help an innocent girl, not cart her around for prize money like a toffee vendor at a festival!”

“If you don’t like how I guard the Lady—”

“I don’t like a _number_ of things you do when you’re with—"

“Loud-mouth woman—”

“Arrogant old goat—”

“Enough,” says Sansa with a voice like frozen rock, and both of them suddenly remember who’s standing between them and shut their mouths.

Brienne is mortified. She’s going to blame it on the pregnancy and the way it plays with her head, she’s never, _ever_ , been so disrespectful in the presence of a lady, certainly not _her_ lady, and for the sake of jibing with the _Hound,_ of all people—

“My lady, forgive me,” the Hound grits out, beating her there, and she glares at him, and Sansa catches it, and with a frustrated huff she gets to her feet, aggravation in the rustling of her skirts.

“Do you know, I think I would prefer to spend the day under my sister’s protection,” she says coolly, sweeping out from behind her desk and towards the door. “Sandor, you can accompany Lady Brienne down into the crypts. Perhaps you two will find some common ground if you spend a little time together. At the very least, if you continue acting like children, I won’t have to be your minder.”

And with that she's out the room, and Brienne and the Hound stare after her and then stare at each other and Brienne considers saying that actually she needs to go back to her room and rest, it’s good for the babes, but then the Hound snarls, “You heard the lady, get a move on,” and _Gods, he’s the fucking worst._

That’s the story of how Ser Brienne of Tarth and Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound, end up in the dank, echoing crypts, maybe a half mile deep under Winterfell, pawing through shards of dragonglass and Essosi spears and Dothraki arakhs and a lot of chainmail, all of it in cold, resentful silence broken up only by Brienne barking numbers at the Hound, who may or may not scratch them down in the ledger they brought, she’s not sure, she barely cares at this point.

The Hound caves first, after Brienne comes back from her third piss break in maybe an hour. “Seven hells, did you swallow the Green Fork for breakfast this morning?”

She rolls her eyes and grits her teeth and doesn’t say anything, instead returning to the pile of pikes she’d been carefully laying out in fives. He snorts from somewhere behind her and she feels his vast shadow moving in the light of the torches, drifting towards one of the ruined crypts that’s since been patched up with plaster and brick by some well-meaning stonemason.

“All these fucking Starks,” he murmurs, and she’s not sure if he’s talking to her or to himself. “So fucking honorable. Even dead.”

“Do not disrespect Lady Sansa’s ancestors,” she says with a tinge of self-righteousness. He snorts again.

“You’ve got a right proper stick up your arse, don’t you?”

A pause, as she counts and he stares at the desecrated tomb.

“I respect ‘em.” His voice is quiet, a growl in the musty darkness. “The Starks. At least the ones I know. Knew.”

“Good,” she finally answers, at a loss. “Twenty-seven of the pikes.”

The charcoal scratches across the page. She moves away from the rack of pikes and walks a little further down the long, low-ceilinged hallway, coming to a barrel full of swords that have been practically thrown inside without a trace of order or organization. Brienne rolls her eyes and begins to heave the swords out and onto a nearby rack, emptying the barrel so she can refill it like a human being and not like a blind monkey. The babes are quiet inside her this morning, thank the Gods. This is boring work but it’s steady and regimented and lets her forget her own bigness and fatigue and everything else that comes with growing tiny people inside of her.

“You don’t trust me with her.” The Hound is hidden by the racks of weapons between them but his voice echoes, gruff, clear, a dour ghost in these old tombs. “What do you think I’ll do?”

“…I don’t know what you’ll do,” Brienne says, keeping her head down even though he can’t see her either.

“And that’s why you don’t trust me?”

“A symptom, not a cause.”

“It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“I swore my sword to Lady Sansa, it _is_ my business.”

“She doesn’t need a nanny.”

“And instead she needs you?”

Silence. The swords scrape against the sides of the barrel, one by one.

“She was a baby when she came to the capital.” He’s so quiet she had to stop moving and strain to catch his words. “Looked like a little doll, all done up with dresses and pretty gems, for that vicious shit Joffrey to play around with. I scared her back then. I meant to. I scared everyone. Bloody easier, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says stiffly, and he laughs like a bark, loud and sharp.

“Like fuck you don’t, a great beast of a woman. Bet you got that sword out fast as you could when the lads were around, showed them what they’d lose and how fast they’d lose it if they tried with you.”

Brienne swallows and takes more swords out of the barrel.

“I didn’t want him touching her,” he says, something new in his voice now. “That little cunt fucked with everything he could get his hands on, including me, but when he did it to her…and even then, she was quiet. She cried to give him satisfaction but she never…she didn’t have to fight back to win against him. Little bird in a cage, wings of steel.”

More silence. Then:

“What does she need?”

Brienne doesn’t want to answer but it’s not a new question, it’s one she’s asked herself too many times. “I don’t know.”

He laughs again. “You really don’t know anything, you dumb bitch.”

The words hearken back to that day on the mountain, Arya tiny and glaring from behind him, her hand on the hilt of her sword, and she tells herself not to rise to it, not to make the same mistake as last time and lose track of the person she’s fighting to save in the midst of another battle.

All the swords are out now, and she hefts one in her hand, carefully lowering it into the barrel. One of the babes kicks inside her and she makes little shushing noises, absentmindedly, like talking to herself.

“When she bled for the first time, I told Joffrey,” he says, and Brienne freezes. “Fuckin’ guard dog, fuckin’ slave, I fuckin’…took the sheets and brought them to him, laid them down on his table. He sniffed and sneered and told me to send his mother in to see the girl. Then he had the steward put his plate down on top of the sheet, right where the blood was, and he ate his breakfast.”

Brienne closes her eyes. She tries to imagine a different Sansa, tiny, delicate, confused, grieving, vulnerable…like a baby just out of the womb, but alone in the wilderness, surrounded by wolves.

And dogs.

“If you touch her out of turn, I will kill you,” Brienne says quietly. He shuffles around, she can hear him moving. Her blood is hot in her ears and her lower back is beginning to ache from bending over the barrel.

“She’s asked me to.”

Blood hotter, pounding in her throat.

“You know what’s happened to her, you know what she’s been through—”

““I didn’t do it, all right? I haven’t.” A low, shaky breath. “She said she needed it…me.”

“What?”

“That’s what she said. I told her she doesn’t—she doesn’t know what she needs, and she asked if I thought I knew better than her what—but you don’t know either, neither of us, two big dumb fuckers who don’t know.”

Brienne closes her eyes. The babe is kicking again, and her back is screaming, and her feet hurt, and her chest is so so tight, the thought of Lady Sansa alone, asking for something, terrified to get it and not to get it, she swore she would never fail her lady.

“You—you can’t decide for her,” she says finally, wincing as her back twinges sharply. “And neither can I—ah—if there’s one thing I know now, after—oh—”

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, footsteps coming nearer, and she doesn’t want him here, she just wants him to listen, she leans against a rack of dragonglass weapons and speaks through gritted teeth as the muscles in her back and abdomen spasm.

“If she wants you, she knows why, so it’s not—for you—to tell her—but if you want her back—then don’t—don’t you _dare_ want anything else, not— _ah—_ not anything more than to—be the man a lady—like her—could—want— _fuck—”_

Brienne’s not sure when she slid down the post at the end of the rack and ended up on the floor, but she’s here now, because the ground is cold on the seat of her wool pants and that’s about the only thing she can feel besides the blazing screaming ache starting just above her ass and moving up through her, radiating, her skin stretched too tight, and she swears again and then the smell of musk and leather and sour milk is in her face and he’s there, the Hound, crouching beside her, his huge hairy scarred face goggling down at her in the torchlight.

“Fucking hells, woman, what’s happening?”

“Nuh—nothing—just—” She’s trying to talk but _FUCK it really fucking hurts_ , it’s like every pulled muscle and overtrained ache but magnified until she wants to scream, and then—

It ends in a kind of weird hiccupping stop, a release but not, because she can feel the tension lingering somewhere in her, waiting, and the Hound is pawing at her with his big meaty hands and she swats them away, panting.

“Is it the babes? You’re not going to have them here, are you? It’s a fucking crypt!”

“Get off me,” she gasps, but even as she blinks back the tears _(how did those get there)_ she shifts and feels something gooey and disgusting down there, between her legs, and no, no, oh no.

He must see it in her face then, the first bolt of panic, because suddenly he’s standing up and she hears a buckle clink and then his heavy fur cloak falls to the floor with a _wumph_ , and then he’s kneeling back down and his hands are on her again and she tries to squirm but _holy hells he’s lifting her she’s off the floor and in the air—_

“What are you _doing,”_ she demands, trying to struggle, her stomach a massive weight and bulk that she can’t fucking get around. The Hound swears when she accidentally smacks him in the face but doesn’t drop her, no, instead his arms go tighter around her, one under her knees and the other around her back, and Brienne beat him in combat twice before so she thought she knew how strong the Hound was but for the first time she wonders if he’d let her fucking win at least once because she’s a huge woman who is even more hugely pregnant and yet he’s still holding her firm and steady, no shaking or stooping, cradling her like a bride on her wedding night, and this is too bizarre, she needs to get out of here.

“Stop _squirming_ , you arsehole,” he growls, and then they’re moving, long strides back through the crypts towards the stairs, and Brienne would feel intensely humiliated right now if she weren’t being overcome by a sharp, spiky panic.

“It’s half a mile back up to the castle, just—go get someone, don’t be an idiot,” she gasps, and he laughs somewhere above her, that same barking sound, but something is different now, less mangy, less sullen, he sounds almost—brave?

“I’m not letting you have your fucking babes in the Winterfell crypts,” he tells her. “That’s a lifetime of bad luck if I ever heard of one.”

“I’m not going to have them—”

She wants to argue, she really does, but the pain just came back, lighting her up in a blaze of agony, and she can’t help it, she cries out, her legs try to straighten, she’s clawing at his hair and shoulder, and she feels a terrible jolt as he stumbles and she wants to tell him to _stop, just stop, every step makes it worse_ , but he’s irrepressible, some kind of machine, one foot after another, and she can hear herself sobbing and swearing in his ear, and the babes are kicking so fucking hard, she’s scared, she wants Jaime, she doesn’t want to die, she needs help, _where’s Jaime?_

“I’ll get you to him, woman,” she thinks she hears the Hound say, and it’s probably the pain making her stupid but she could swear it’s the voice of a knight. “Don’t you fucking give up already, Brienne of Tarth, fuck you, we’re on the way.”

Brienne has never given up in her life, and she would tell him that, but she can’t speak anymore.

\----------------

_The day after her mother dies, Brienne goes down to the beach._

_She’s too little to go by herself, she knows that, Septa Roelle and her father and Merym the steward and everyone else has told her a thousand times but today nobody is paying attention to her and everything is quiet and she doesn’t want to be here, she wants to be away, so she sneaks out through the stables and stumps down to the beach._

_They may say she’s too little but she’s still a big girl, big enough to know not to get too close to the surf or play on the slippery rocks. Instead she sits in the sand, right where the tide has started to go out and it’s all thick and wet but only the foam on strong waves touches her toes as the water recedes, and she digs a tunnel._

_It’s deep, and it’s narrow, and it will go all the way to Essos, or Pentos, or Myr. It will reach far far away, to beautiful places where knights like the ones in Father’s books are still riding around on big horses. She’ll dig a tunnel out of Tarth, away from everything, and she’ll never have to think about not having a mother anymore._

_The tunnel is hard work, her little hands wrinkled and cold after a while, but she keeps going. If she stops, she’ll have to go back home, and back home is the red sheets, and the sticky awful smell like dead meat, and the chair Mother would have had breakfast in today if she weren't dead. Back home is her father crying like fathers are not supposed to cry, the way she cries when she’s being a big baby, his head in his hands, not even looking at her when she asks to be picked up. Back home is the empty cradles and the place in her room where the babies were supposed to have lived, eventually, where she would have been a big sister._

_Her tunnel is sturdy and strong. The walls are smooth and it’s already very very deep, probably a mile at least, so deep the sand is becoming dry again and the little grey crabs that live in the wet-packed surf have disappeared. Brienne burrows and burrows, sand in her eyes and her mouth and her ears, digging her tunnel to far away._

It’s not fair, _she thinks, even though big girls don’t say things like that._ It’s not fair. She had me just fine. Why’d it have to go wrong this time?

 _She doesn’t finish the tunnel, at least she doesn’t get to Essos. Her hands are scraped and bleeding and so tired she can’t even open and close her fingers, and her clothes are soaked in salty spray, probably ruined, and she’s very hungry and very thirsty and she wants her father, even if he doesn’t want her back. So finally she climbs out of the tunnel, which did go_ very _far down indeed, and looks down into it, at her handiwork, at how very deep she went._

_Tunnels in the sand don’t go to Essos, though, and they don’t lead you away from your dead mother, and eventually the tide will come in again and wash all her digging away._

_Brienne is only four, but she knows that running away is a game you always lose, and that’s her least favorite part of games._

\-----------------------------

Brienne is in a bed. It’s not her bed, but it’s a bed, and it’s big and soft, and that’s fucking great, because she’s going to tear it apart.

The pains have kept coming, less and less time between them, and every time they come they make her feel like an animal, writhing and moaning and scratching at whatever she can get her hands on. She doesn’t try to hide it anymore, now that the Hound isn’t carrying her through crowded hallways and up stairways like the world’s worst parody of a bedding ceremony. Now she’s in a bed, in a room, with only Gilly and Hanna and a younger girl who she’s pretty sure is Hanna’s daughter, Margie maybe, she can’t really remember because her spine is on fire.

“That’s it,” Hanna says quietly as Brienne thrashes and grunts and squeezes her hand so hard she’s sure something will break. When the Northern woman had arrived right on Gilly’s heels, daughter in tow, Brienne had been briefly surprised and embarrassed. They’d only spoken once or twice when she came down to see Jaime in the kitchens _(she doesn't like it down there, people bump into her it and it's loud and dark and she always feels like she's going to knock over the salt),_ but in the weeks since Jaime began his campaign to keep Brienne monitored at all times, she’d begun popping up in places Brienne found herself as well, silently folding laundry or sewing new seams while she fixed Brienne with a hard brown eye and made her feel—well, terrified is a strong word, but potentially an accurate one. How Jaime managed to make friends with a woman like that, Brienne has no idea, but then again, Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister weren’t exactly an obvious outcome either, so maybe he has a type.

And she’s glad for Hanna now, this solid boulder of a woman who seems to know almost as much as Gilly, bringing her water and helping her strip out of her leather and wool and watching carefully as Gilly kneels at the end of the bed and peers between Brienne’s legs.

“You’re coming along fast,” the Wildling woman says, and Brienne feels a chill at the hesitance in her voice. “Very fast, for a first, but with twins—come, let’s get your legs up, hand me that—”

Hanna’s daughter runs for Gilly’s basket and brings back a small bottle of something, which Brienne has to look away from this, this is all too much, she can’t do this, where the fuck is Jaime—

“Augh!” It’s not a pretty noise, but it’s the noise you make when something cold and wet and slimy is spread across the very most sensitive part of yourself, and Brienne’s too deep in it now to care.

“It’s for the stretch,” Hanna mutters, squeezing Brienne’s hand. “Just breathe now.”

“Where’s Jaime?” Brienne snaps instead, not for the first time, but Hanna doesn’t react at all aside from a small shrug.

“Went off to greet his brother just before we got word you’d taken the chamber. No doubt someone’s been sent to find him, so don’t keep on about it.”

“I’ll keep on about whatever I—”

Brienne’s admittedly immature retort is interrupted by the door to the chamber banging open and Lady Sansa entering in a whirl of skirts and red hair, her eyes wide, chest heaving like she just came off a sprint.

“Brienne!”

“My lady—what—” Brienne tries desperately to sit up and cover herself with the linen of her shift, not wanting her lady to essentially walk right up and meet her cunt face to face, but Hanna holds her back. Down below, Gilly starts a strange kind of massage with whatever oily substance she’d poured on Brienne earlier. It feels strange and squishy and deeply unsettling.

“Sandor told me you—in the crypts—oh Brienne,” Sansa gasps as she puts one hand on Brienne’s cheek and another in her hair. The worry in her lady’s eyes makes her feel guilty but also, weirdly, a little bit safer.

“He shouldn’t have concerned you, my lady, I’m fine,” Brienne says, and she can’t blame Sansa for the look on intense skepticism she receives in response.

“Are you having pains?” Brienne nods and doesn’t say _it’s not pain it’s the end of the world over and over I can’t stand it._ Sansa bites her lip and looks down at Gilly.

“Is she opening yet?”

“Yes, getting there,” Gilly says, still rubbing at Brienne with strong fingers. “They’re going to be moving down quickly, we should hold the belly to keep her from tearing inside.”

“Tearing?” Brienne says before she can stop herself, and she can hear the fear in her own voice, high and buzzing, _where’s Jaime where’s Jaime where’s Jaime_ —

“I’ll take this side,” Sansa says, even as she begins to strip off her fine filigreed dress. Brienne’s eyes widen and she tries to sit up again, deterred by Hanna’s iron hands.

“What? No, my lady, please, this isn’t—you shouldn’t see—”

“I’ve seen babies born before, Brienne,” Sansa breaks in firmly, already down to her shift, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. “Sandor and Arya are standing guard outside the door, Ser Jaime is on his way, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sansa, please—” Brienne isn’t sure when she started crying but she wants it to stop, she wants it all to stop, she’s not ready. “This is not your duty, I’m the one who—”

“It _is_ my duty, to be here with you,” and the ferocity in her voice is chilling, the she-wolf corralling her own pack. “That is what family is for, Brienne, and you are my family and I am yours, so I will be here when your children come to join us.”

Sansa clambers onto the bed and puts her hands, slim but strong, on the side of Brienne’s stomach, and Hanna’s daughter is on the other side, and Brienne’s head is spinning and she wants to say something, anything, but then the pain is back again and all she can do is shout and arch her back against the hands pressing her down and shut her eyes, make it dark, find the thought of Jaime and the courage of battle and grip them tight to her even she is pulled down down down into chaos.


	8. Ten Months

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it. (More notes at the end.)
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to NinT, archette, and forpeaches, without whom I wouldn't have had the mental or emotional strength to finish this and without whom I would not have enough excellent gifs and pictures of certain tall blond performers.

_“I’m hungry.”_

_“You ate an hour ago.”_

_“And I was walking for six hours before that.”_

_“As was I.”_

_“Well you’re the size of a house, so you must have a larder hidden somewhere underneath all that cheap armor. I’m not quite so well-equipped.”_

_“We don’t sup until we stop for the night.”_

_“Lady Catelyn won’t be happy if you deliver a skeleton to King’s Landing.”_

_“I didn’t realize you were so delicate.”_

_“Oh I am. Pampered little lord and all. It takes regular meals of rich foods and good wine to be this handsome, you know.”_

_“Keep moving, Kingslayer.”_

_“I suppose you_ don’t _know, actually. Tell me, was your mother cursed by a witch while she carried you? Or was your father perhaps a giant from beyond the Wall? A carnival strongman from Pentos? A charming stallion? That would explain your face and size, but you don’t move like a horse, more like a mule. But of course, mules don’t make babes. So I suppose you must simply be the Gods’ mistake, half-man and half-woman. Whatever’s between your legs should be fascinating. Want to show me? Ah—what are you doing? I thought we weren’t stopping yet.”_

_“I’m going to go hunt.”_

_“You don’t have to tie me to the tree, you can bring me along. I’m an excellent hunter.”_

_“Be quiet while I’m gone.”_

_“Oh I shall. There’s no point talking if you aren’t here, my lady. A clever beast, to understand the tongues of man. Next thing you’ll learn to count to ten.”_

**10 Months**

* * *

As soon as he sees Podrick’s face, he knows.

The squire finds him out past the front gate, waiting with Davos and Jon Snow for the Dragon Queen and her two advisors to disembark from the back of their giant black mount. Jaime thinks the dragon looks smaller than he remembers, scrawnier, and wonders if it’s just his imagination or if the beast is reacting badly to the prolonged cold _(the answer is probably both)._ Daenerys doesn’t look particularly well either, her long white-blond hair dingy, coming out of its many braids in wisps, and her perfectly straight posture now slightly slumped. He remembers the first time he saw her, sitting in the plain wooden chair at Winterfell’s head table like it was the Iron Throne itself, her gaze piercing, one more Targaryen full of smoldering embers and barely-repressed wildness.

But she doesn’t look like that now. She looks like a young woman who is tired and sad and wants to go home, even though there’s not really a home to return to. For Jaime, who left his first home at fifteen and didn’t find another one until he met Brienne _(not that he realized it at the time)_ , there’s something familiar in the weary way she trudges through the snow towards her welcome party, and he never expected to empathize with a Targaryen but as these last few years have taught him, all things are possible.

“Welcome, my queen,” says Jon Snow, voice low and hesitant like a dog expecting a kick, and Daenerys surprises everyone by giving him a small smile.

“It’s good to see you, Jon.” She seems to mean it too, and the smile stays as she looks at the rest of them. “You all appear well. Ser Davos. Ser Jaime.”

Jaime shares a stunned look with Davos, even as they both incline their heads respectfully and mumble thanks. The Dragon Queen doesn’t have much love for either of them, and while they were willing to receive her as part of Jon Snow’s military advisorship, they hadn’t expected personal greetings.

“More than well, I’d say they appear plump and pampered,” announces Tyrion as he trots over, Varys bringing up the rear like a slippery silk shadow. “You’ve clearly had it easy up here in your little Stark stronghold. Well, we’ve come to put a stop to that.”

“Thank the Gods,” Jaime says as he drops to his knee to hug his younger brother. The minute his arms close around Tyrion, he can feel how skinny he is, the chest that is usually strong and barrel-like thinned out, with the ribs prominent enough to feel through his shirt. The beard hides much of his face, but when they pull back Jaime can see a gauntness to his brother’s features that he doesn’t like at all. Varys, who has always been so soft and round, is also diminished, his cheeks hanging loose and the skin around his neck and chin receding up into sharp corners.

_How badly have the Eastern armies and their leaders been struggling?_

“We have a meal and rooms prepared for you, my queen, and for Lords Varys and Tyrion, as well as fresh straw laid down in the barn for Drogon,” Davos pipes up helpfully. Jon takes a step towards Daenerys.

“Perhaps, if you would like, we could sup together, and…talk?” he asks with a tinge of nervousness, offering Daenerys his arm. She takes it, leaning on him a little more than politesse would require, and nods gratefully.

“It would be good to rest before we meet for counsel. I would like to hear all the news that could not travel with your ravens.”

“As would I,” Tyrion adds, his sharp eyes trained on Jaime. “For instance, am I an uncle yet? Or is my good-sister still full to the brim with Lannister progeny?”

Which is, of course, the exact moment that a piercing cry of “ _Ser Jaime! Ser Jaime!”_ rings out from behind them, and the whole group turns to see Podrick Payne running full-tilt out of the Winterfell gates in their direction.

“Is that Pod? What’s wrong?” Tyrion asks, but Jaime doesn’t answer, because he sees Podrick’s face coming closer, eyes wide, mouth open and panting, no frame of fur because he didn’t even stop to put on his cloak before he ran out here—

Jaime knows, and he’s already moving.

* * *

_“Uh…whuh…where…”_

_“Stop squirming.”_

_“Get off me—”_

_“Shhh, stop, just stop.”_

_“It_ hurts _.”_

_“I know it does. Just lie still.”_

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Cleaning you.”_

_“I’m clean, I was…in a bath…”_

_“You are unwell still, you soiled—never mind, only give me a moment.”_

_“I feel sick.”_

_“Your fever just broke, that’s why you feel—”_

_“I feel_ sick _. What a terrible smell, shit and straw.”_

_“You’ll feel better if you don’t move so much.”_

_“I know you. You’re the big woman. At the other end of the rope.”_

_“That’s me.”_

_“Brienne.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“They tied us up together.”_

_“They did.”_

_“You were beating me, on the bridge.”_

_“I was.”_

_“Nobody beats me.”_

_“That’s right, I forgot.”_

_“Did they—they didn’t rape you, did they?”_

_“No. They didn’t.”_

_“That was earlier today? Or yesterday? Why can’t I remember anything, I—I wanted to stop them, I did stop them.”_

_“Yes, you stopped them.”_

_“…where am I?”_

_“Harrenhal Castle.”_

_“It hurts. My hand. It’s gone but it hurts so much, please,_ please—”

_“Shhh, shhhh, it’s all right, lie still. It will be all right.”_

_“No it won’t. You’re not a liar, don’t lie.”_

_“All right.”_

_“Never lie to me.”_

_“I won’t.”_

_“…it hurts, Brienne.”_

_“I know it does.”_

* * *

“Ser Jaime, wait—”

“ _Where is she,”_ Jaime snarls, reaching out with hook and hand to push Pod aside as he storms into the castle, looking around wildly like he’ll spot Brienne giving birth in a corner or under the stairs. Pod bounces right back and grabs Jaime’s sleeve, yanking him in another direction.

“This way, ser, in the third bedroom down from Lady Sansa’s—”

And Jaime’s off again, not waiting to hear more, taking the steps up three at a time, feeling like his heart is going to burst out of his chest.

_I’m coming, I’ll be there, I am yours and you are mine, just hang on—_

He can hear Podrick huffing and puffing behind him, hot on his heels, and then they burst out onto the third floor corridor and Jaime is running again and Pod yells “Not that way, the southern passage” and he’s changing direction and then there’s more stairs and it’s all a delay, keeping him from her, interference, obstacles, there are always obstacles between Jaime and the ones he loves but not this time, _not this time—_

And then he skids around a corner and sees two figures at the end of the hall, one very small and the other very large, and as he races towards them he recognizes them as Arya Stark and the Hound. He makes to fling himself right past them and through the door they’re guarding but suddenly he’s being caught by two very large hands on his shoulders and held in place, thrashing, clawing, inches away.

“Whoa there, Lannister—”

“ _Let me in_.”

It’s been a very long time since he truly sounded like a golden lion but the roar and the growl and the claws are all there in his voice now.

Arya Stark isn’t impressed. “Don’t you go running in there like you’ve come to put out a fire. She’s pushing two whole babies out of her own body, she doesn’t need you going into hysterics.”

Jaime opens his mouth to threaten her, insult her, curse her, unleash all the fear and urgency inside of him onto this cold little girl—

But then a cry comes from behind the door, clear as day, high and desperate and broken off right at the end, and it’s Brienne, he knows her voice like he knows the sound of his own thoughts but he hasn’t heard her like that before, she sounds scared, she sounds small, she sounds _hurt._

_She needs me._

He stops struggling and lets the Hound push him back onto his own two feet. He takes a deep breath, holds it inside, lets it out. His good hand, clenched tight in a fist, slowly unfolds and hangs at his side. Beside him, Pod is practically vibrating with tension, and he looks at Arya and the Hound, and in their eyes both pale and dark he can see fear, hidden but lurking, a faint reflection of his own.

Brienne always helps him. She always catches him, props him up, believes in him when he is nothing but doubt. Again and again she refuses to accept his defeat, again and again she loves him more than he deserves, and every time he’s been ready to give up on himself and his honor she makes him strong enough to bear the hurt and press on.

_Now it’s my turn._

Jaime moves forward again, and this time they let him pass.

The moment he opens the door he’s hit with a smell that catapults him back seventeen years, to the large room full of windows and red sunset light that Cersei had labored with Joffrey in. It’s an earthy, organic, primal smell, blood and sweat and all kinds of things that come from inside the body, and underneath a strong metallic tang of raw energy, like the air charged right before lightning strikes. It’s the smell of labor and the birthing bed, and it makes the hair all over his body stand on end.

The room is big but it feels small right now, crowded with five people in a tangle on and around the bed. The first thing he sees is Sansa’s red hair, falling thick and loose over her white shift as she kneels on the edge of the mattress, and then he sees Hanna, huge implacable Hanna, right across from her, and Gilly is down at the end closest to him, bent over, and Hanna’s daughter Martha is off to the side wringing out a wet cloth into a bowl, and in the middle of it all, sitting back with her legs propped up and apart—

_Gods, she’s beautiful._

She’s not really, not what the bards or the poets would call beautiful, with her face all mottled red and white and her sweat-soaked hair standing up crazily around her head and her shift clinging wet and translucent to her skin, but in that moment she’s the most glorious, courageous thing he’s ever seen, all bared teeth and blazing blue eyes, a warrior, a goddess, and Jaime would follow her through all seven hells and beyond.

Their eyes meet.

“You son of a _bitch!”_

It’s not the loudest she can yell, he’s heard her in battle and he’s heard her in bed, but it’s still pretty loud.

“Fucking _bastard_ , I’m going to rip you limb from _limb_ ,” she roars, panting heavily as she struggles to sit up further, clawing at the sheets. Jaime can’t feel his legs but he’s still moving towards her somehow, ducking around Sansa and pushing himself halfway onto the bed, right up next to Brienne’s chest and shoulders, his hand going to her cheek.

“Brienne—”

“Don’t you talk to me right now you arsehole, this is your fault, I’m going to fucking _kill_ you,” she spits, grabbing at his wrist, “going to beat the absolute shit out of—"

She chokes suddenly, silenced by a jolt of something from deep inside, and her fingers tighten until he can feel the bones in his wrist and arm grinding together and it’s agony but he’ll live, he’s lost one hand for her already, another doesn’t matter, none of it matters because she’s making that same awful sound he heard through the door, her back arching and her eyes squeezed shut as the pain hits her and she sobs and pleas and breaks in front of him.

The women in the room spring into action, ignoring Jaime completely. Sansa and Hannah push hard at either side of Brienne’s stomach where it rises up high in the air, a giant mound swathed in the limp wet linen of her shift. Their hands are flat, fingers spread, holding her steady even as she writhes and shudders with the strength of the contraction. Martha runs to Gilly’s side and hands her the wet cloth, which Gilly holds in her teeth to crawl between Brienne’s legs and press against the place where her legs meet, liquid squelching as she soaks the skin that threatens to tear, and the crying is getting louder, the screaming, the—

With a gasp Brienne collapses back down, tension draining away. Jaime doesn’t know when he got his arm behind her shoulders but it’s there now and he uses it to catch her, holding her up, her hot, damp forehead falling onto his shoulder. She releases her grip on his wrist and the pain shoots all the way up his arm but he summons his soldier’s reflexes and shakes it off, puts it away for later.

“I have you,” he murmurs into her hair, his lips wet with her sweat. “I’m here, Brienne, I’m with you.”

“I hate you,” she gasps back, groping for his good hand and lacing her fingers fiercely through his. “This is your fault, you did this to me, I’m going to make you pay if it’s the last thing I do.”

“That’s fair,” he says, and the moan she presses into his shoulder sounds like laughter.

“Down to a minute between, now,” Hanna grunts as she moves a hand to the top of Brienne’s stomach and presses firmly down. Brienne hisses and squirms, pushing at Hanna, but the Northern woman doesn’t budge.

“You’re hurting her!” Jaime shouts. Hanna looks up at him, right in the eyes, the way she does when he over-kneads dough and it goes tough and rubbery and has to be thrown into boiling water.

“Bad luck for the man to be in the room,” she says bluntly, and Jaime sets his jaw, ready to fight, but then she adds, “So if you’re going to stay, keep by ‘er side and shut your mouth ‘bout what you don’t know.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Brienne says, squeezing his hand. Sansa snorts beside him, and Jaime turns to look at her, the serene Lady of Winterfell, sweaty and stripped to her shift and leaning against Brienne’s stomach like she’s trying to brace a dike against floods. She meets his gaze, grey eyes blazing, and he feels a sudden surge of gratitude towards her, for being here, for laying hands on Brienne without hesitation, for coming to her side even before he even arrived himself.

“Are you ready for this, Ser Jaime?” she asks. She sounds older than him, calmer, stronger. He tightens his hold on Brienne and swallows thickly and nods.

“Just tell me what to do.”

“Don’t let her go,” Sansa replies, and Jaime nods. He can do that. He’s been doing it longer than anyone of them knows.

At the foot of the bed, Gilly is deep in between Brienne’s legs, face pressed so close it looks like she’s going to try and crawl up to meet the babes on the way out. “You’re opened up to the full, Ser Brienne,” she says, strong fingers poking and prodding. “It’s almost time to push.”

“What? No, I—no!” Brienne cries out, recoiling, pressing back into Jaime and the safety of his arms. “You said it would be longer—you said it could be—hours, a day, I—”

“What I said doesn’t matter, these babes are coming,” Gilly says firmly, and Brienne shakes her head wildly, her eyes huge, and then it happens again, the pain hits her and the impact is titanic, Jaime braces himself as she thrashes and groans and swears and Hanna and Sansa fight to keep their places on the bed.

When it stops this time, her noises don’t. She’s crying, struggling to breathe, and Jaime cradles her against him and speaks fiercely in her ear, “You can do this, you can do it, Ser Brienne, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Oathkeeper is your sword, you have led armies to victory, Brienne, Brienne, you can.”

“No,” she sobs, trying to pull him closer and push him away at the same time, flailing, “I can’t, I don’t _want_ to, it hurts and I—oh—”

And again, no rest now, and she can’t talk anymore, tears running down her cheeks. This whole time Jaime has shut off everything inside of himself except a razor-sharp focus on her and her body and her voice but as she shakes against him, her teeth grinding together and steam rising from her skin, he finds a single moment of stillness and the terror surges up and slams into him, a body blow, wind knocked out of him, a momentary paralytic.

_Please, Gods, new or old, anyone listening, anyone out there, just don’t let her die._

“It’s time,” Gilly says, pushing her sleeves up, and like a military commander she gestures and shouts and guides her troops into place, Sansa and Hanna holding Brienne’s legs up with her feet braced against their shoulders, Martha standing by with cobwebs and cloth and all kinds of strange things from Gilly’s basket, and then she’s telling Jaime to move too, lean Brienne forward and get in behind her so she rests between his legs, her back to his chest so he can keep her upright when the first baby bottoms out, and he tries to get into position but it’s like wrestling, she’s fighting him and groaning and straining, he’s not even sure if she knows where she is anymore.

“Damn it, Brienne, just do as you’re told!” he finally roars, pushing her shoulder, and she makes an outraged noise and swipes blindly at him with one arm.

“I don’t take orders from you, Jaime Lannister,” she gasps, but it’s weak, an empty challenge. He shoves her forward, swinging his leg back and behind and now he’s there, curled around her, and he holds her as tight as he can.

“You have to make everything difficult, don’t you,” he says into her neck, trying not to let his voice shake. He feels her arms curl around his thighs and squeeze.

“Jaime,” she whispers, not fighting now, just small and frightened, “Jaime, it hurts so much, I want it to stop, please, please, I don’t want to die, just make it—oh Gods, help me…”

His heart breaks, and his own tears come, and he gathers her up in his arms as close as they can get and whispers, “I wish I could,” and she says, “Don’t leave,” and he says, “Don’t _you_ leave, I’m right here, don’t you go anywhere,” and then Gilly says, “Brienne, you need to push now”—

And she screams.

* * *

_“Is that what you’re wearing?”_

_“What are you doing here?”_

_“I’m the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, I go where I please.”_

_“Well, don’t you have a king to guard? The one getting married in several hours’ time?”_

_“He’s—left to his own devices. As he prefers. My men guard him well.”_

_“I’m sure they do. Only him.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_“Nothing at all, Ser Jaime Lannister.”_

_“…you can’t wear that to the wedding.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“It’s men’s clothes.”_

_“It’s a skirt.”_

_“Over breeches. My father and sister may tolerate it when all you’re doing is skulking around the Red Keep looking unamused and sparring out of sight in the training yard, but you’ll be in court today, you have to try and look—”_

_“Silly?”_

_“Womanly.”_

_“They’re the same thing when it comes to me.”_

_“Don’t whine, that’s_ my _job. Come, I had the handmaids lay out several options in your solar.”_

_“That’s not—”_

_“Oh, don’t worry, I gave them a rough idea and they can alter anything that doesn’t fit. There’s one in particular I personally hope you elect to wear. It matches your eyes.”_

_“…my eyes?”_

_“Well—yes, your eyes, I simply thought—”_

_“I’ll wear the stupid dress if you let me talk to Lady Sansa.”_

_“Don’t start with this right now.”_

_“You admitted she’s not safe here—”_

_“We can argue over Sansa and the relative merits of trying to secure her freedom based on the demands of a dead woman and a defunct army later. For now, can we please focus on getting you into something that won’t make my father order you down to the Black Cells?”_

_“Don’t be absurd.”_

_“He once had me whipped for coming to court without my shoes brushed. He doesn’t care what you want or what you think, he cares if people find reason to laugh or snicker at his house. You are a guest of the Lannisters, and you have to dress like one. No matter how irritating it might be. Please, Brienne, just do me this—favor. So I don’t have to worry.”_

_“…fine, let’s get this over with.”_

_“That’s the spirit.”_

* * *

There’s too much blood.

Jaime has seen three births, he’s no midwife but he knows what it looks like when a wound is draining someone dry, and it looks like this.

She had been pushing for what felt like an eternity but was probably only minutes. The screaming ebbed and flowed, louder and softer, sometimes petering into pitiful breathless weeping, and his name over and over again, occasionally angry, mostly just desperate and needful, “Jaime Jaime Jaime,” and he’d done all he could do which was fucking _nothing_ , just hold her and brace her and tell her she can do it, and Gilly kept saying “one more, another one, come on Brienne,” and Sansa was babbling “it’s all right it’s all right you’re almost there just keep going” and the blood started coming right when Gilly cried, “There’s the head!”

Jaime’s heart jumps violently at that, and he feels a tremor go through Brienne, _their baby is touching the world, it’s happening_ , but even as he has that blindingly perfect thought Brienne moans low and shocked and goes rigid all over, and then Jaime hears a ripping noise, wet and muffled, horrible, and suddenly blood is coming, coming, everywhere, everywhere, glistening red and thick all over Gilly’s bare arms, spattering and pooling on Sansa’s white shift, blotting dark on Hanna’s wool skirt, and Brienne is screaming but not with effort this time, with pain, he knows the sound of pain.

“Another, another, _now_ ,” Gilly insists, and Jaime’s led thousands of men into battle but he’s never been able to put half the authority into his voice that Gilly has in hers. Brienne hacks out a sob and shudders and pushes, good soldier that she is, and Jaime smells rather than sees another wave of blood flow out of her.

“Jaime,” she groans, falling back into him, head heavy against his neck, “I’m so tired, I need you, please, help,” and this is the second time she’s asked him for help, ever, twice in one day after years and years, and he _can’t fucking do anything_ , he just squeezes her and kisses her cheek and her ear and says words he’s not listening to, words that don’t mean anything, because words can’t hold a person together when they’re being ripped apart.

Another tearing sound, Brienne chokes on a shriek, Sansa gasps and Hanna says, “You’re almost there,” and Martha is at the ready with handfuls of cobwebs and thick clumps of cotton but she can’t get in there because Gilly is poised, bent on both elbows, hands hidden from Jaime’s view by the rise of Brienne’s stomach, and then she calls out, “Shoulders!”

Jaime has no idea why, but for some reason that word makes Brienne yell so loud his ears ring, he grabs her hand and hisses, “I love you, you can do it, here we go, together,” and he can’t tell if she can hear him but she screams and heaves again, her body rolling, and her strong hand digs black bruises into his thigh, and Gilly is clutching and pulling and she’s covered in blood up to her neck now, and Brienne finally runs out of breath and sags, panting—

But the screaming doesn’t stop.

_Here. Out. Alive._

It comes from the shining wet purple _thing_ in Gilly’s arms, growing louder as she uses her finger to clear blood and mucus and whatever else is down there out of its nose and mouth, the long ropy cord coiled around her finger, and Jaime’s head is spinning, it’s all the same as it was seventeen years ago except it’s completely different, he’s not separated from his child by an army of septas and Grand Maester Pycelle and a world of secrets, it’s here, he’s looking at it, his—

“Gilly,” Sansa says urgently, and the tone of her voice sends ice shooting down Jaime’s spine. She’s staring there, between Brienne’s legs, at something Jaime can’t see, but even as he tries to move and catch a glimpse Brienne wails, high and piercing and totally unlike her, and Gilly is briskly handing the baby over to Martha in exchange for the cotton and the cobwebs, and when she leans back down and pulls at the sheets Jaime hears a wet flop and suddenly there’s blood running fast and free across the floor, enough that it flows like water, like a river when the dam breaks.

“Brienne,” he says, looking down at her, at her pale face and bloodless lips, she’s starting to shake, and he says it again, “ _Brienne_ ,” and her glassy eyes look past him as Gilly says, “She has to keep going, coming now,” and Brienne gasps and writhes but it’s quieter and slower than it was, she’s growing heavier in his arms and she won’t look at him, he shakes her and says her name again and again, he says, “You’ve got to _live,_ you can’t give up, I didn’t whine and cry and quit so don’t you fucking dare,” and her cries are growing weaker even as she pushes again, and he forgets the rest of it, forgets his child in the world and the other one coming, forgets the women with their bracing hands, forgets the North and the winter and the sister lurking on the edges of the future, forgets everything that isn’t this one person, his person, the only one who has ever chosen him for _him_ , all of him, the only one who proves the world is really worth fighting for, _Brienne_ , and it isn’t until a pair of huge hands strong as Valyrian steel wrap around his arms and yank him bodily out of the birthing bed that Jaime realizes he’s been howling at her, telling her not to go, stay, _stay with me_ , shoving her and grabbing her and trying to pull some awareness out of her as she fades, staring through him with eyes that don’t recognize, her skin too cool beneath his fingertips, but then suddenly those hands are dragging him up and out and away, towards the door, out of the room, and he gets a single moment to look back and see _Holy fucking Gods there’s blood everywhere, it looks like a murder, it looks like Aerys, did I kill someone else_ , and then he’s being thrown out into the hallway and landing in another pair of giant strong hands.

“Keep him out.” It’s Hanna’s voice, low and calm and Northern, and Jaime’s head clears enough for him to focus on her sloping shoulders, wide and strong, her thick skirt soaked through with blood, and he reaches for her, for the room, for Brienne.

“No no no let me back—”

“You can’t do anything now,” Hanna tells him, like she’s telling him to let the bread prove longer next time, he’s too impatient for a proper rise. “She’s in the fight and she’ll come through it or she won’t, but she can’t find her strength if you chase it away.”

“I have to be there,” he begs, desperate, and it’s the Hound holding him back now, he know those massive scarred fingers and brutal knuckles, he sags in those huge hands, trying to go on his knees, plead, supplicate, _let me hold her._ “She needs me, I can’t let her go, Lady Sansa said I can’t let her go.”

Hanna’s face shifts, just for a second, and Jaime remembers her saying she’d birthed eleven children, eight dead now, and how had she done it, how did Cersei do it, how did this horror not kill over and over and over again, if _Brienne_ was dying—no, Brienne couldn’t be dying, he’d lost everything many times before but losing her would be losing too much, she can’t, please, Brienne—

“You men got no choice in the matter of who goes and who stays,” Hanna says quietly, and her stone-strong palm comes up and rests on his cheek, cool, soothing, a moment of calm as the world burns down. “But she’s not the sort to give up easy.”

And then another scream from inside, throaty, terrible, and Gilly yells, “Hanna, her leg!” and Hanna is gone and the door closes and Jaime is outside without Brienne.

His knees go completely and he sinks down to the floor, slithering out of the Hound’s grip as he releases him. The smell of blood is still there in his nose, iron and salt and red. He closes his eyes, balls his fists and presses them against his face but now he can see it too, the blood, pooling on the floor _(just like Aerys)_ , soaking the linens _(just like Mother)_ , and Brienne, her face, no mirror of his own like Cersei’s, her wonderful different unique singular face, contorted in pain, going white, begging him not to let her die, and he’s out here on the floor, useless, a one-handed incestuous washed-up fool who has never had anything to offer—

There’s a small, cold hand at the nape of his neck, and a voice close to his ear, soft and dark like shadows cast by clouds in the moonlight. “That woman would move the seven hells and heavens to come back to you. She’s strong enough to do it, too.”

Jaime takes a deep breath, shuddering. Arya Stark’s fingers tighten very slightly as the cries and screams continue, muffled through the door, but he can hear, he can hear the battle, she’s still fighting, his Warrior, his commander, she needs him, why can’t he join her—

“Jaime,” and this voice is warm, stronger, it always has been, _Tyrion._ “Jaime, get up.”

“If she dies—” he chokes out, and Arya shakes him once, hard, still gripping his neck.

“Don’t say that.”

“Get him up,” says Tyrion, and the wide hands are back, lifting him under his armpits and setting him on his feet like a teetering drunk. Jaime blinks, sees Tyrion before him, eyes wide, clothes smeared in blood that—

Jaime looks down and sees blood on his own clothes, his sleeves, his chest. Oh.

“This way,” Tyrion gestures down the hall. When Jaime doesn’t move, he reaches out and wraps his little hand around Jaime’s, the way he used to when they were children and he’d try to pull him away from Cersei or Father or a swordmaster, pull him out to the gardens or the courtyard, somewhere they find a little while to play together and forget they were Lannisters with debts to pay and gold to wear.

The next thing Jaime knows, he’s sitting in a narrow chair with carved arms _(Brienne hates this kind of chair)_ in chambers decorated with embroideries of wolves and weirwood trees _(Brienne is worse at sewing than I am and I only have one hand)_ and Tyrion’s voice is calm and measured in his ear as a cup of something is pressed into his hand _(Brienne doesn’t mind mead, not like I do, what if she never gets to tell me I’m silly about it ever again)._

“Drink,” says Tyrion, and Jaime drinks. It doesn’t taste like anything.

“Is he going to be sick?” That’s the Hound, what the fuck is the Hound doing here except hauling him around and keeping him from Brienne?

“Jaime, put your head between your legs,” Tyrion instructs, and Jaime obediently slumps forward, curling in half, hiding in his own lap, his arms wrapped around his legs and the cork-covered hook digging into his calf, what a joke, steel hook or golden hand, it doesn’t matter, he’s still useless to her.

_How many times has she stood over me, tall and broad and serious, when she walked me through the forest, when she fought me on the bridge, when they took my hand and she kept me alive, when she carried me out of the baths and bore my worst secret as her own, when she pulled me out of that bearpit as they held her legs, when she wore the armor I gave her and the sword I asked her to name, when she stood before everyone and risked her own honor and respect for mine, when she slew the dead in droves and danced beside me in our final battle, when she unlaced her shirt with those long elegant fingers and let me touch her, when she held me down and told me I was good, her good man, sliding hot and wet and tight over my cock, when she let her hand be bound to mine in the godswood, when she carried my children, when she told me she loved me, when she let me love her, when she was everything I’d given up on, there before me, real and walking and talking and fighting, and when she told me I could be the same, if I lived and wanted and only tried…_

_It can’t all have been dust, it can’t all be blown away in one red wind._

He’s not sure how long he sits there, circling in despair and heartache and fear, clutching the thought and the feel of Brienne close to him as though that would keep her here, and praying as he never has before, to gods he doesn’t believe in, only he’ll believe now, for Brienne.

But the next time the real world pulls him back, it’s with a thick-fingered hand on his shoulder, one more familiar hand, and he looks up into the tear-stained face of Podrick Payne.

This is the second time today Pod has come to get him on Brienne’s behalf. But this time Jaime can’t read the message on his face, in those wide dark eyes, the ones he sent off with Brienne years ago. He only sees pale skin and wet cheeks and everything else is a blur, it doesn’t matter or exist, it’s only the two of them and what will pass between them now.

“Ser Jaime.”

The world teeters on a single point, threatening to fall once and for all into the frozen void, and he prepares to fall with it.

“She’s asking for you.” 

Pod smiles, dark eyes still brimming with tears, and breath slams back into Jaime like a blast of fierce winter wind.

* * *

_“Ser Jaime.”_

_“Lady Brienne, welcome to Riverrun. You…look well.”_

_“Thank you, ser.”_

_“Aren’t you going to tell me I look well too?”_

_“…you look well.”_

_“For Gods’ sakes, don’t lie. And don’t take me seriously all of a sudden. What, a year or so and you forget?”_

_“I forget nothing, ser.”_

_“Good. Neither do I. Podrick looks well too.”_

_“He…is.”_

_“Did he slow you down?”_

_“Not excessively.”_

_“Good.”_

_“…Ser Jaime—”_

_“Do you know, I wondered quite often if you were dead or not.”_

_“You did?”_

_“I did, you know, to pass the time. I don’t really believe anything could kill you, certainly not any_ one _, but a falling tree, perhaps, a rockslide, a bolt of lightning…”_

_“I have survived thus far.”_

_“I can see that. It—that’s good.”_

_“…you’ve survived too.”_

_“Did you think I wouldn’t?”_

_“I thought—you might do something—”_

_“Stupid?”_

_“But you haven’t.”_

_“That’s the flamboyantly upbeat woman I know. How goes your quest?”_

_“Lady Sansa is safe and under the protection of her brother Jon Snow. Ser?”_

_“I just…I just assumed Sansa was dead.”_

* * *

Where everything was blurry and unknowable before, now it’s all clear and exact. He feels his whole body, the swing of his arms as he walks, the arc of each step carrying him out of Lady Sansa’s quarters and down the hall, the pain in his thighs and hand where Brienne had gripped him so hard, it’s all in excruciating focus, ice-crystal sharp. His breath is cold in his lungs, his heart beats staccato, the sound of many footsteps follows behind him, and he feels all of it, every tiny piece of every moment he has to wait to see Brienne.

The Hound is standing at the door, and Jaime knows with the same beautiful clarity that permeates everything that if he tries to stop him from going in he’ll kill him without a second thought, but the Hound does no such thing, just nods at Jaime, the stretch and give of every one of his pockmarked scars standing out in sharp relief, and though it makes no sense his ruddy cheeks and eyes are wet, Jaime can see them glittering, and then he doesn’t look anymore because he only sees the door and feels the cold handle against his palm and then he’s through it—

Sunset light arcing through the windows _(just like when Joffrey was born, but no, this is not then, this is different, this is now.)_

The smell again, stronger, mingled with the stench of congealed blood and something else, a strong biting smell a bit like lamp oil but somehow floral, lighter.

Gilly’s basket upended on the ground, bundles of dried herbs spilling out onto the floor.

The floor stained red, sticky, the floor where blood has been. Martha on her knees, pouring water clouded white with lye over one of the darkest patches.

More blood on the sheets, a pile of linens stacked by the foot of the bed, white and red, blood everywhere, and other things, clumps of something thick and dark, a strange yellowish film, a gory map of birthing painted across the whiteness.

And on the bed, where the mattress has been stripped down and laid over with furs, propped up in a deliberately organized nest of pillows, naked body haphazardly covered by a woven blanket, her skin clammy and pale, her hair plastered down, the blue of her eyes offset by the redness of crying and exhaustion, but still open, still bright, still here—

She looks up when he comes in, and for an eternal second it’s just them in the room, Brienne and Jaime, that singular pull between them all-consuming, like when he knighted her, like when he watched her float away from Riverrun, like when she turned and saw him in the bear pit, locked together by whatever part of them both it is that fits so perfectly, them, _them,_ _I am yours and you are mine._

She’s not smiling, she looks weary and terribly weak, sunk down in the pillows, but even so, he can see it in her, the steel that runs through her soul, the quiet purity that is all the more beautiful because she doesn’t flaunt it, wouldn’t know how—he sees the light that brought him through the dark, over and over again. It’s alive, she’s alive, and shattered as she is she’s still looking at him like only she can, like _he’s_ the light in the fucking dark, like the sight of him makes something in her release and open and trust, she lets out a shaky breath—

“I did it?”

It’s a question, as though she’s not sure and she needs him to confirm it. Her voice is weak, so hoarse she can barely speak. She sounds small and vulnerable and unsteady and she’s asking for him, the way she’s never let herself ask for anyone or anything else.

That’s when he can’t not be touching her anymore. He’s flying across the room and his knee is on the bed and he’s leaning over her and his lips are all over her face and her neck and her shoulder, anywhere the warmth of life comes through, his tears are getting her pillows damp but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he’s saying “Yes” and “You did it” and “I love you” and all the different words mean the same thing, _we have each other still, we are alive, it’s not over._

_It’s more than us now._

“Jaime.” Her fingers press against his cheek and nobody else says his name like that, nobody but Brienne. “Look at them.”

Jaime forces himself to take his mouth off of her and sit up, pushing pillows to the side as he crowds in against her side _(she’s so warm, alive alive alive)_ , and he follows her gaze to the other side of the bed—

Gilly is standing there, and she’s holding a baby.

And Sansa is standing beside her, also holding a baby.

And Hanna is standing at the foot of the bed.

And also holding a baby.

Jaime’s brain snaps in half. Or it doesn’t, but it sort of feels like it does.

He reaches out blindly for Brienne, clutching at her hand, tingling all over, that strange ultra-clarity making him dizzy. There’s a low buzzing in the room, maybe it’s just his heart, going too fast to tell the individual beats apart. He swallows, tries to speak, fails.

_Three._

_Not two._

_Three._

“You have two daughters, Ser Jaime,” says Sansa, and just like Pod she’s smiling as tears run down her cheeks. Her hair is a mess, her shift is spattered top to bottom in brown-red blood, but there’s a baby tucked up against her chest and she looks like she’s conquered the world.

“And one son,” adds Hanna, her hard voice belying the softness of her arms where they cradle another child. “Seems the little lad snuck in behind his sisters, let you all think there were only two to come. You’ll have to watch this one, he’s already playing tricks.”

_Two daughters. A son. Three._

_Three._

“Stubborn babes, fought hard on the way out,” Gilly coos, gently bouncing the third baby in her own arms. “Lucky their mother’s just as stubborn.”

She looks up at Jaime with those big eyes he used to think made her look simple, when the truth is she’s brilliant, magic, he should be kissing her feet. “Be careful with her. She’s a strong woman but she bled heavy where they tore her, and the after came out with blood as well. I had to use all my witch-hazel and dark tea to slow it, and if Lady Sansa hadn’t got on to ride her through the finish we might have lost her even so.”

Jaime nods, because he’s still having trouble processing what’s going on.

_She was bleeding. But she lived._

_Three._

“Old Nan sat on my mother for almost an hour after Bran,” Sansa laughs. She looks so young and tired and happy, and the blood is still everywhere on her, and she’s still holding one of three babies. “Be glad you didn’t have to bear me quite that long, Brienne.”

“Reminds me of my sixth,” says Hanna, shifting her own baby further into the crook of her arm. “Ripped me so wide open I couldn’t walk for a month.”

_Blood. Babies. Bearing._

_Three._

“Jaime, say something,” whispers Brienne through her scraped-up throat.

_Three._

“Brienne,” he says, or thinks he says, he’s not sure, everything around him is crystal-clear but everything in his head is a frantic whirl that can’t seem to stop. “Brienne…three.”

“Three,” she says, and suddenly there are tears in her eyes.

“Would the pair of you like to hold them?” Gilly asks, stepping closer. “Ser Brienne, you shouldn’t sit up yet, but we can lay a babe on your chest if you want.”

_Hold them._

He nods, slowly then faster, because that’s all he can do right now, thoughts keep falling out of his head, it’s impossible to grab onto anything after the terror and the desperation and all the waiting and now suddenly—

Gilly pulls his arm back, adjusts his other shoulders, says, “Now watch her head,” and then she puts the baby into his arms, making sure the hook is squarely tucked under his other elbow and that the curve of the little body falls neatly onto his forearm.

Everything stops.

_(He can’t help thinking of Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen now, can’t help but remember those brief moments, so fleeting, when he’d seen them like this, tiny and vulnerable and new, but they were so far away, even then, their tether to him thin and wispy and easily snapped by the end of the first day, and now these children are his and coming closer and he’s going to get to—)_

Tiny eyelashes, hunched shoulders, a huge round head with tufts of blonde hair. She is smaller than—than the other babies he’s seen, slim and solid, weighing nothing and yet wonderfully dense, a warm blob swaddled in soft linen. Her face is squished up, eyes shut, cheeks round like little apples, and there are still bits of afterbirth stuck to her in a couple places, her skin is mottled grey and pink with a few white bumps on her face, and her fingernails are like chips of mica shining in a riverbed, and Jaime is totally fucking stupid in love.

_You came from me. I helped make you. And now you’re here, and you’re alive, and you need me._

_You don’t care who I am or what I’ve done, I’m Father and you need me._

There’s a noise from beside him, and he tears his gaze away from his daughter’s face to see Brienne, eyes wide, looking a little panicked, tensing as Hanna lowers another baby onto her chest. This one is even smaller, closer to the size of a newborn puppy than a human baby, but the same in all the important ways, shiny yellow fluff around its ears, square brick-like feet, squished little face—

“You can touch him, he won’t break,” Hanna says, and Brienne lifts a shaky hand, slow, terrified, until she can run one finger over their son’s nearly-invisible silvery eyebrow. The baby’s tiny hand uncurls and curls against her bare skin, his head pillowed right near the curdled pink lines of the scars left by bear claws. In addition to being smaller than his sister, he’s more delicate and soft-looking, covered in a very fine fuzz like a ripe peach.

_I’m Father and she’s Mother and you need us._

“Here’s your firstborn.” Sansa is at his side now, lowering the baby slightly so that Brienne and Jaime can both see her even with their own hands full. “She certainly made an entrance.”

More duck-like fluff on the giant round head, the same blotchy pink skin still smudged in places with afterbirth missed in the hasty cleaning, and a slightly elongated head _(Myrcella was like that, it went away, Jaime had been so worried and he couldn’t ask anyone but he’s not worried now)._ Strong little fists clenched up by her chin. And the first one with her eyes open, unfocused and closing occasionally with sleepy blinks, but blue as her mother’s, shockingly blue, Jaime knows most babies are born with blue eyes that change as they grow but there’s no way this baby’s will, not when they match Brienne’s so exactly it takes his breath away.

_We are yours and you are ours, and you need us._

* * *

_“Kneel._

_In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave._

_In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just._

_In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent._

_Arise, Ser Brienne, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”_

_And she smiles at him._

* * *

Jaime is fully aware that tears are falling from his eyes, not that he bothers moving or shifting the baby to try and wipe them away. He looks back at Brienne, who still seems stunned as she traces the face of their son with one finger, mapping out his tiny features, like she can’t quite believe he’s real. In Jaime’s arms there’s a little movement, a shift, and his eyes shoot down to see his daughter twisting her head back and forth, mouth open, making a snuffling noise. Her eyes open slightly, just slits, but the same blue flashes bright and cool and Jaime’s heart is bursting.

“They were inside me,” Brienne says wonderingly.

“They were,” he agrees, breathless. “Even the one who was hiding.”

She looks up at him now, and he can feel the alarm on her face, in her chest, as the baby wiggles a little and drools on her where she’s still pale and sallow.

“It was only supposed to be two, Jaime, I didn’t—how do I do this, all at once?” Her wide eyes fall to the baby nestled in between her breasts. “How am I supposed to feed them, I only have—I don’t even know how to—”

“No need to panic,” Hanna cuts her off, stoic and unperturbed as ever. “You’ll work it out, one on each tit, I did it when I had to wet-nurse for my sister’s son just after my first daughter came.”

“I can nurse one of them too,” Gilly offers cheerfully. “My little Edd is about ready to take his mash, but if I start now the milk will stay. Polly, down in the kitchens, she’s had her girl three months, she’ll have a tit free too.”

“My mother had trouble getting Rickon and Arya to suck, so she would milk into bottles and they’d take it from the false teat, it’s easy to make,” Sansa adds.

Brienne is looking back and forth at all of them, her mouth slightly open, brow furrowed. Jaime feels like an idiot to have never thought of this, never asked her if she was nervous about nursing two at once, now three—but she never brought it up, she never told him, and men aren’t supposed to know these things, at least not highborn men who were brought up to expect their wives would find wet nurses and septas in private rooms and take care of it all behind closed doors.

But the guilt he feels at his own lack of preparation is overwhelmed by gratitude for these women, who brought his children out safely and bolstered his wife when she was sinking, who knew all the things he’d never learned about how to protect his family, and who even now refuse to let Brienne founder in her doubts, offering and encouraging and supplying, the comrades and companions that the soldiers she spent years fighting beside had never offered to be.

“Thank you,” he says through even more tears _(they’ve been falling without rest ever since he got in the room, he barely notices them anymore)_ , and Gilly smiles and Hanna fixes him with that look he knows from the ovens, the well-baked strong-crust look, and right next to him Sansa meets his eyes and her lip trembles and for the first time he doesn’t feel like he’s looking at her across a bridge that is Brienne, a Lannister and Stark tied together for the sake of peace but always stalking each other in circles, he looks at this young woman who swam through blood and sweat and tears and now holds his child in her arms and he is with his family.

“Can I…uh…” Brienne clears her ruined throat and winces. The baby boy on top of her sighs slightly, and it’s so cute Jaime thinks his heart may explode. “Can I, um…hold them? All?”

They have to work it out with pillows and folded blankets, and Brienne is still too weak and sore to really sit up quite enough on her own, but eventually Jaime gets wedged in behind her again, just like he was when the birth started, when he had to be dragged from the room because he wasn’t as strong as she was _(she’ll say that’s not true, they all will, but he’ll always believe it a little bit)_ , and he takes his shirt off because Gilly says the more skin the better after birth, it helps the body breathe again, and once her naked back is up against his naked chest and his hook’s been unstrapped and set away and the pillows are laid out around them in a ring, Hanna and Sansa carefully place the babes down on Brienne’s lap, lying in a cozy little row, the two girls on either end with their brother in the middle, and Jaime puts his knees up and Brienne loops her am around one side and Sansa mumbles something about telling everyone else the news and giving them a moment and then the rest of the world goes away and it’s just them, all of them, breathing in a warm messy pile and stunningly alive.

“The boy looks like you,” he mutters in her ear. She shakes her head.

“None of them look like me. Or you. They look like…babies.”

“Nonsense. Don’t you see his little ears?” Jaime reaches out and caresses what must be the tiniest ear ever in existence. “Just like yours.”

“I do not have small ears.”

“You do. I adore them. And this girl has your lips.”

“She has baby lips.”

“Our girl over here is long and tall. Just like you.”

“She’s small, she’s a _baby_. What about you, don’t any of them look like you?”

“What do you think?”

She stares at the babies, who snuffle and squeak and blink back at her. Her hands play over them, so light she barely touches, nervous, wanting, apprehensive.

“This…this one’s nose is a little pointy. Like yours. And this other one has darker hair, the way yours gets when you don’t go outside enough.”

“We’ve got to name them,” he tells her, rubbing his good hand over the far-left baby’s round belly. “Especially since they’re going to get hungry soon and demand to be fed in turn, we’ll need some way to keep track.”

“Oh Gods, I’m not ready for them to be hungry,” she whispers, and he snorts into her hair.

“You’re ready for all of it, you just don’t know it yet.”

“Shut up,” she murmurs. Her hand lays flat on the far-right baby’s head, her long beautiful fingers combing through the soft white-blond hair. “You’re the one who liked to spend all night dreaming up names, you choose.”

“Well, I’ll start, but I’m not doing this on my own,”

They spend a minute in quiet, looking down at their children. The girl on the left, the one who was born first, is still wide-eyed and getting squirmy, her little arms pushing against the folds of the swaddling. Jaime works his fingers into the cloth and runs them over her warm back, the skin soft like a breeze on his callouses.

“What about Catelyn?” he asks, half to himself and half to her. Brienne catches her breath.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, for better or worse, Catelyn Stark is where we found each other.” He swallows, remembering that night after his failed escape, Lady Catelyn’s eyes pinning him to the post at his back, her voice a cutting winter wind, and behind her, a huge woman, clad in armor, staring down at him with _Kingslayer_ written across her face.

“We don’t have to name them after anyone,” she tells him quietly. “ _I_ wasn’t named for ancestors or tributaries, it’s not the tradition on Tarth the way it is on the mainland. You shouldn’t feel obligated.”

“I don’t. I feel…as though it would be a blessing of sorts.” He swallows, pressing his thumb against his daughter’s shoulder. “She was a remarkable woman, and her daughters—all the Stark women, fierce as they are, without them we wouldn’t be here.”

The baby girl turns her head and fastens her mouth around his thumb, sucking, blue eyes fierce. Jaime trembles with the force of the love beating its way out of him.

“All right,” Brienne says, and he feels her lips brush his jaw, much lighter than his daughter’s. “Catelyn.”

She turns her attention to the boy, wedged in the middle, tiny even between his two tiny sisters. His eyes are open but he’s very placid and still, lying quietly without wrestling against his swaddling. Brienne traces his eyebrow again, touches his tiny nose, hums gently.

“Podrick.”

He laughs before he can stop himself, and she lightly elbows him in the ribs. “Are you serious?”

“You said you wanted me to help you name them.”

“But… _Podrick._ ”

“Is he not worthy?” she demands, and Jaime scrambles to clarify.

“On the contrary, the boy has proven himself a thousand times over. It’s just…the name itself, is, um…”

“What?”

“Well, he’s gotten very far in _spite_ of it, hasn’t he?”

She tries not to smile but she’s too tired to try very hard, and he kisses the side of her neck when he sees it. “I suppose I see what you mean. But still, if there’s some way…”

“Perrick,” he suggests. She frowns.

“Is that even a real name?”

“I’m not sure, I knew a man named Derrick once, and Beric Dondarrion—but if it isn’t, who cares? You said we didn’t have to follow tradition, and generally as a rule we never have. Let’s take the name of one boy you raised and build it up new for another.”

“I didn’t—raise Pod,” she mutters, but she’s also smiling again, and her big hand scoops gently under the baby’s head, and he sighs gently again, which Jaime has already decided is his favorite thing ever. “Perrick. Fuck it, why not?”

He laughs, surprised like he always is when she curses, but enjoying it, loving it, loving all of this. They look to the last baby, the first one he held, not the first out and not the last but patient, curious, blinking up at the ceiling and wiggling slightly, like she’s trying out her body in this big wide world.

“Olenna.”

It doesn’t enter his mind until the moment it leaves his mouth, but as soon as he says it, Jaime sees the Queen of Thorns, sitting there in her final minutes, devious and caustic and admitting to the murder of his son, but of all the women Jaime has ever known, only one other has ever refused to play games orchestrated by the men around her, only one endured and endeavored and possessed as much sense of self as Olenna Tyrell, and he married her.

_You tough old bird, you who fought tooth and nail for your family, you who took death from my hand and drank it down with dignity. My daughter will grow strong too, but she will surpass you and leave the world better than she found it._

“Like Olenna Tyrell?” Brienne asks, and he can hear the confusion in her voice. “Jaime…are you sure?”

“Did you ever meet her?” he asks. Brienne snorts and nods.

“Once. She was—unusual.”

“She was many things. I should hate her, for what she did to my family, but…” He takes a breath. “It was not her responsibility to make us worthy. It was mine, and my father’s, and—and ours, and we failed. Olenna did what she had to protect her own from us, she refused to accept the inadequacies of others, and I just—I want our daughter to carry the name of someone who took her own steps, not someone who followed.”

Brienne looks down at their third child, and with the hand not under Perrick’s head she traces the little arm that’s wormed its way out of the swaddling and breathes out slowly when the baby’s fist curls around her finger, gripping tight, determined, strong.

“Take what’s past and build it up new,” she murmurs, stroking the tiny fist with her thumb. “Olenna.”

“Two intimidating matriarchs of powerful houses, and one made-up name cribbed from a squire,” Jaime says as he looks down at their children. “Have we done wrong by our boy?”

“He’ll make it his own,” she replies, settling her head back into his neck. “He’ll never believe himself the second coming of some great romantic hero, he’ll just be himself.”

“And the girls?” Jaime strokes Catelyn’s cheek. She mewls, and he thinks she might be hungry.

“They’ll never believe that women have no place in history,” Brienne says, and when Jaime sees the way she looks at her two daughters, it’s like the first time he heard her steel ring out against his, fierce and free and strong as the sky.

* * *

_“…Jaime?”_

_“Good morning.”_

_“Were you watching me sleep?”_

_“No.”_

_“You were.”_

_“I was.”_

_“…why?”_

_“Kiss me again.”_

_“All right…oh…Jaime, what are you…”_

_“One week.”_

_“Wh-what?”_

_“One full week, you’ve shared my bed.”_

_“Excuse me, ser, but_ you _are sharing_ my _bed.”_

_“Of course, forgive me. Gods, you’re so wet already.”_

_“I am not.”_

_“Ah, Ser Brienne, stubborn as always. Were you dreaming of me? Come now, don’t be difficult, just let me…yes…a little wider…”_

_“Jaime, wait—what’s gotten into you?”_

_“Can’t I just be in a good mood?”_

_“You’re not saying what you mean, I don’t like it when you talk in circles.”_

_“I disagree, when my tongue moves in circles, like so—”_

_“Jai—_ Jai- _me, please…talk to me…”_

_“Do I have to?”_

_“No. But you can, if you want to. I can take it.”_

_“…I just…I don’t…when this ends, between us, I—”_

_“_ When _? Are you leaving, ser?”_

_“No, of course not, but—”_

_“Am I leaving?”_

_“I don’t know what you plan to—”_

_“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. Do you remember the way you’d speak to me when we were marching for King’s Landing, when you called me half-man, half-woman, mule-born, the Gods’ mistake? Do you know how that felt, to hear those things?”_

_“Brienne, I—I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, there’s nothing I can say to take it back, what kind of person would—”_

_“I don’t want an apology, I want you to understand that I have always had reasons to stay away, or to leave, or to hide like a crying child from a bully. But I’ve done none of that, because you are no bully, Jaime Lannister, much as you try to act like it. You are none of the many things you try to be for the sake of others’ expectations.”_

_“Don’t lower your standards for me, Ser Brienne, it dishonors you.”_

_“Jaime, come up here, stop flailing around trying to sting me. Is a week enough for you? Have you had your fill?”_

_“A lifetime of you would not be enough.”_

_“Then why do you assume my appetite is so easily satisfied?”_

_“Because I have nothing to give, and you deserve the world.”_

_“Don’t tell me what I deserve. That’s not for you to—Gods, you’re an impossible man, do you know that?”_

_“I do. The stupidest Lannister.”_

_“Not stupid, I didn’t say stupid. Stop hiding, I told you,_ look at me _._ ”

_“I can’t.”_

_“Yes you can, you’re a knight. Jaime. My bed is still yours. It’s yours as long as—as long as you want it.”_

_“Brienne…”_

_“Why do you shove all the honor in the world onto my shoulders? Why can’t you accept that we share it, together, why do you want me to take what’s rightfully yours?”_

_“It’s not mine, I gave it away—”_

_“So let me give it back. Stop pushing at me, stop expecting the ground to fall away, I just—I love you, I know I’m clumsy with it, I don’t know what I’m doing, but—”_

_“I love you too, Brienne—”_

_“Shhh, Jaime—”_

_“I do, I’m sorry, I’m—I don’t know what I’m doing either.”_

_“Then stay here and let’s bloody well figure it out.”_

_“I’m not sure I can.”_

_“Bullshit. I’m a woman knight and you defeated the armies of the dead with one hand, between the two of us we must be able to do_ something _right.”_

_“…you’re not usually so optimistic.”_

_“You’re not usually so morose.”_

_“Perhaps this could work then.”_

_“Perhaps. Let’s try for another week and see.”_

_“As you wish, ser.”_

* * *

The next few hours are exhausting.

First, Brienne has to try feeding the babies, a task which makes her incredibly nervous and short-tempered. Gilly and Hanna are patient, though, helping her shift Catelyn and Olenna back and forth, getting one latched onto a nipple and then the other, and they keep falling off and dribbling the yellowish milky ooze onto her chest and Jaime tries to offer encouragement but she snaps at him so sharply that he immediately gets the message and retreats to the window with Perrick cradled in his arms, watching from a safe distance as Brienne struggles with a skill that is very different from riding horses and hand-to-hand combat.

“Mama’s really very good at a lot of other things,” he whispers to his son, who doesn’t seem fussed about not being first in line to eat. He’s content to push his tiny hand against Jaime’s chest, brushing delicately against wiry hair, and make soft noises like a bird cooing. Jaime adjusts his arms carefully, making sure that his stump is fully wrapped around the little body, and leans down to nuzzle the impossibly silky blonde hair on Perrick’s head.

At one point, Hanna comes over with a plate of dark brown bread in thick slices, a gob of butter, four pieces of bacon, and a waterskin. Without speaking, she helps him get situated in a chair and settle Perrick securely enough in his right arm that he can eat and drink with his left. His eyes meet hers as he rubs a slice of bread over the butter, and for a moment all he sees is hard brown like frozen soil, but then something shifts and her thick lips quirk up in the barest hint of a smile and quick as a lit candle she leans over and kisses his cheek, so soft it makes him light-headed, and then she’s gone again, bundling up the bloodied sheets with Martha and carrying them out of the room.

Eventually Brienne gets the whole breastfeeding thing, at least well enough for both girls to suck steadily and noisily, and it only takes a few minutes for the harried look to fall off her face and a slightly awed expression to replace it as she stares down at the tiny mouths fastened onto her.

“It feels—strange,” she says when he asks if it’s uncomfortable. “Not bad, sort of—buzzy, and warm, and—strange.”

She doesn’t sound like she doesn’t like it.

Gilly offers to feed Perrick if Brienne’s worn out after nursing the first two, but Brienne sets her jaw and shakes her head, insisting that she carried all three of them herself for eight months, she can bloody well feed all three of them herself too. The stubborn tone she takes makes Jaime anxious: her color is still bad and she’s very weak, unable to hold the babies to her chest without someone else supporting her grip, and he doesn’t want her to set the precedent of overtaxing herself just to prove that she _can_ do it all at once, especially when she doesn’t have to. But luckily, Perrick continues to establish himself as the lowest-maintenance of babes, latching on quickly and suckling without undue squirming or twitching. His sisters, full and sleepy, have calmed down a bit, though Catelyn is still fussing and waving her little arms as much as she’s able.

But feeding time is only the first of their duties. Next come the visitors, and Jaime has to admit, while it is nice to be surrounded by such a large and loving group, the longer it goes on the more he looks forward to it all being done.

First is Sansa, wearing a new and unbloodied dress, coming back into the room with two small figures in tow. Tyrion’s eyes are huge, and even underfed as Jaime found him earlier he fairly glows at the sight of the baby lying on Brienne’s chest, the other baby cradled in between her knees, and the third baby snug in Jaime’s arms. Beside him, Arya looks—well, Jaime’s not sure it’s actually possible, but if he had to name the look on her face when she appraises the babes, he would call it fear.

“Brother,” Tyrion breathes as he comes up to the edge of the bed. Without saying anything, Jaime reaches out his foot and drags a nearby chair over so that Tyrion can clamber up and be on the same level as him and Brienne. “You said—when I got your last raven, you said it was twins.”

“And so we thought it was,” Jaime says with a shrug, making no attempt to wipe the grin off his face. “They’re already getting the better of us.”

He offers Olenna, her eyes closed now as she sleeps off her first big meal, and Tyrion takes her in his own little arms like she’s made of dandelion fluff and blown glass.

“They’re all a bit…weird-looking,” Arya says, standing at least two paces back, and Sansa hisses at her in a very big-sister way but Brienne actually laughs, Catelyn bobbing up and down on her chest.

“They are, aren’t they? I’d never seen newborn babies so close before these ones came out of me,” she admits ruefully, and Arya’s face clears a bit and she manages a smile, her grey eyes warming. She takes a step closer.

“Sansa said there were two girls and a boy?”

“Sansa told the truth,” Jaime says, reaching out to pick up Perrick where he’s snoozing between Brienne’s legs. “The boy is called Perrick—”

“Is that a real name?” Tyrion interrupts as he gently bounces Olenna, and Jaime rolls his eyes.

“It’s _his_ real name.”

“Do you have an opinion, my lord?” Brienne asks coolly, her blue eyes flaring in her pale face. Tyrion cuddles the baby in his arms closer, like he’s hiding behind her.

“None whatsoever, my dear good-sister,” he replies. But when Brienne looks back down at Catelyn, Jaime hears him mutter, “Tyrion is a perfectly fine name that already exists, but no, you had to go make one up…”

“If we get a pet of some kind, we’ll name it after you,” Jaime tells him, and Tyrion can’t help but snicker.

“All right, and what’re the girls’ names?” Arya asks impatiently. Jaime gets the feeling that her presence in the room has more to do with loyalty to Brienne and deference to Sansa than it does with any actual desire to associate with babies, and that she’ll be glad to escape as soon as she can.

“Olenna,” says Brienne quietly, and only leaves enough of a pause for Sansa to take in a sharp breath and for Tyrion’s eyebrows to shoot up before following with, “and Catelyn,” as her hand comes up to cradle the little girl on her chest.

This time it’s Arya who gasps, the cold little Killer of Death caught off-guard. Sansa makes no noise but her eyes immediately fill with tears, a flush spreading across her cheeks, and Jaime can feel Brienne tense beside him.

“Brienne…” Sansa finally whispers, and a moment later she’s bent over mother and child with her arms around Brienne’s neck, careful not to squish the baby even as she buries her face in Brienne’s shoulder, and although Arya stays back as long as she can eventually she strides over to the other side of the bed, blinking rapidly, and she leans down to rest her own forehead against Brienne’s temple, and when Jaime hears more sniffles and whispered words he turns back to his brother and gives them the most privacy he can.

“Interesting choices,” Tyrion murmurs, eyebrow still quirked. “You do recall Catelyn Stark had me arrested and almost thrown out the Moon Door?”

“It probably did you good,” Jaime replies, and Tyrion smiles as he looks back down at Olenna, running one finger over the beautifully soft skin of her cheek.

“You did it, Jaime,” he whispers. “You let yourself find it. For once.”

“In spite of my own stupidity.”

Tyrion looks up, shaking his head, those wide warm eyes the same as they were during boyhoods spent scampering around Casterly Rock, when the biggest problems were still so little.

“You deserve this, brother. If only the country could come into itself like you have.”

“You’ll lead us there,” Jaime tells him, and Tyrion coughs to disguise a sniff before he leans forward and kisses Jaime on the cheek, just like Hanna, just like he used to in those long-ago days.

After Tyrion and the Starks do a little more crying and hugging and finally take their leave, it’s Podrick and Davos’s turn. The latter is all big smile and cooing and thick fingers tickling the babies’ tummies, a doting grandfather within three seconds of meeting them, while Podrick hangs back a bit, staring at Brienne like he’s worried she might disappear if he blinks.

“Three, not two, eh?” Davos chuckles as he smooths Perrick’s fluffy hair back. “You’ve got your own little platoon here.”

“Podrick,” says Brienne quietly, and the squire starts, his lip between his teeth. “It’s all right. Come here.”

Podrick takes a few hesitant steps up to the side of the bed, but he still keeps a little distance, staring, fists clenched. Brienne leans her head back against the pillows and gazes up at him. She’s switched with Jaime, and now Olenna is curled up against her breastbone. “I told you to come here.”

“Ser Brienne…” he breathes, and all of a sudden his breath catches and then a sob rips its way out of his throat and he’s crying again, like he was when he came to tell Jaime she’d made it through her own Long Night, and Brienne reaches out a hand for him even as he sinks onto the mattress, his knees giving way, his head in his hands.

“It’s all right, lad, it’s all right now,” Davos says, shifting Perrick expertly to one arm as he puts his other hand on Podrick’s shoulder, but it’s Brienne who gets Podrick to look up, her fingers curled around the back of his head as she tilts his face up towards her, gentle and soft in a way she’s never been before today, before the babes.

“I’m all right, Pod,” she says quietly, and Podrick hiccups, staring at her.

“When Ser Jaime—when they took him screaming out of the room, and there was blood everywhere, and—and I thought—I didn’t—"

“But it’s over now,” Jaime reminds him, distantly trying to remember if he’d been screaming earlier. Even the thought of that wrenching horror and pain is enough to make his chest seize up, so he quickly retreats and lets the memory settle, maybe forever. It really is over.

“Would you like to hold one of them?” he asks instead, and Pod looks terrified but Brienne nods firmly and says, “Go on, Pod,” so the squire gulps and steels himself and accepts Perrick when Davos hands him over.

“That’s the boy,” Brienne tells him, a flicker of nerves on her own face. “He—we named him Perrick. After you, Pod. We changed it a bit, to give him something, uh, of his own. But it’s you I thought of, when…”

Jaime notices the way she dropped that last _we_ , and he doesn’t mind, because he’d meant it when he said he wouldn’t name the babes alone, he knows how important Podrick is to Brienne, how much she wanted to tie him even closer into the family growing up around her, and he’s glad she has it in her to tell Pod like that, face to face, how much he means to her.

Pod’s reaction, after a short-stunned silence, is to burst into tears again.

Davos helpfully stretches his unmangled hand over the baby’s head to protect him from the damp. “I didn’t know Perrick was a real name,” he tells them while Pods bawls, and Jaime catches Brienne’s eye and grins, keeps grinning even when she makes a face back. This ‘inventing names’ thing is fun.

They eventually leave too, Davos kissing each babe on the forehead and giving both Jaime and Brienne his blessing, Pod sniffling and wiping away snot and generally looking a wonderful Podrick mess. They’re escorted out by the Hound, who hesitates long enough to give Brienne a strange look Jaime can’t parse and for her to blush and mumble, “Thank you, Cleg—Sandor,” which he responds to with a short nod and a clumsy facial expression that might be a smile before he closes the door behind him. Jaime makes a mental note to ask about that later, when the dust of birth has cleared a little.

Thankfully they get a bit of a break now, or what counts for one when Brienne needs both his and Gilly’s help to get out of bed and use the chamberpot. Hanna and Martha are back, two silent Northern pairs of arms, rocking the babies and keeping watch while Jaime and Gilly carefully maneuver Brienne up off her pillows and onto her feet. She trembles against them, her broad muscles and long limbs weak like a newborn colt, and she whimpers pitifully at every movement below her waist. Gilly has swaddled her torn and battered pelvis in linen bandages that smell strongly of honey and garlic, of all strange things, but by now Jaime assumes she knows exactly what she’s doing. When they finally get her up and off the bed, Jaime sees a watery pink stain on the furs and the mattress beneath, and though part of him wants to know the full of it, wants to examine the wounds like a commander caring for his soldier, he can feel her embarrassment and self-consciousness, the way she cringes and shivers as her naked skin makes contact with the air, and so he purposefully looks away as she leans on him and Gilly and squats, hisses through her teeth as she pisses, staggers on noodle-like legs when she tries to stand back up. She grasps his shoulders to stay upright while Gilly changes her dressings, grinding her teeth and refusing to look him in the eye.

“Careful now,” Gilly says as they gently lead her back to bed. “You’re torn up as badly as I’ve ever seen, and it’s not going to heal any faster if you push yourself. Rest is what you need, rest and washing and solid food.”

“I’m not hungry,” Brienne mumbles, but once they get her settled back in _(on freshly changed furs)_ and Hanna brings her a plate of boiled meat and winter cabbage and potatoes and more brown bread and a refilled waterskin, it only takes her a minute or so to start wolfing it down. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch the color come back into her cheeks, and Jaime could stare at her all night.

Except he can’t, because Catelyn has continued her competitive streak by being the first baby to loose her bowels, and Hanna doesn’t give him a choice about learning there and then how to change an infant’s wrappings.

It’s not the worst thing he’s ever done, or seen, or smelled. But if he hadn’t fought the undead hordes, it might have been.

_(He doesn’t say this, though, partly because he doesn’t want to sound like a weakling but also because he’s aware that complaining about ‘women’s tasks’ in a room full of sturdy women who have lived beyond the Wall and wielded swords and who pound the hell out of dough every day may not be a very good idea.)_

By the time Catelyn is all wiped and wrapped up again, and her brother and sister have had their own turn releasing various substances and being subsequently cleaned up, and Brienne has finished her dinner, their last visitors of the night arrive, though they’re far from expected. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen look drawn and weary, as though they’ve spent the day laboring in some other way that proved far less rewarding, and Jaime wonders why the hell they’ve bothered to come at all. Brienne is well-respected by Northerners and the Essosi alike, but she doesn’t know either Lord Snow or the Dragon Queen all that well, and Jaime is pretty sure both of them actively dislike him.

But when Daenerys steps forward and her eyes fall on the three soft white bundles lying freshly changed at the foot of the bed, a smile that he’s never seen on the fierce Dragon Queen’s face before is suddenly shining there, bright like sunlight on the water.

“They’re beautiful,” she says softly. Brienne shifts uncomfortably, though whether it’s the company or the soreness, Jaime’s not sure.

“Thank you, your grace.”

Jaime is sitting on the bed beside her, a hand on her thigh over the several layers of blankets and the shift she slipped on after her supper, but he feels a sudden strong urge to get close to his children as the eyes of the Dragon Queen roam over them. Not that he thinks she’ll hurt them, but there is something in those purple Targaryen eyes, something about the blinding white of her hair, that still makes his skin crawl and the sour scent of wildfire crawl up into his nostrils.

“Seven blessings to the both of you,” says Jon Snow, his dark gaze flitting across their faces and then down at the babies. Jaime hears what might be sadness in his voice, or maybe longing, but it’s never easy to read that dour Northern man.

Awkward silence fills the room, broken only by the babies’ snuffles and coos. Jaime is about to open his mouth and make a pointed comment about the long day they’ve had when Daenerys looks up and takes a deliberate step forward, her focus burning into Brienne.

“You are a mother who fights, Ser Brienne,” she says quietly, embers in her voice. Jaime’s hand tightens on Brienne’s thigh, and brisk as water flowing over sand her fingers brush soothingly against his wrist.

“I am, your grace,” she replies. Daenerys nods, unsmiling.

“We both are.” She inclines her head and her purple eyes burn. “Nothing is harder for a mother who fights than seeing her children suffer, even in spite of the power she wields.”

Jaime’s skin tingles. He hears it in his head, _burn them all_ , and Brienne’s fingers press harder against the back of his hand.

Daenerys doesn’t speak again. She looks back down at the babies, the warm and undangerous smile flickering across her face once more, and then suddenly she’s done, turning gracefully on her heel and sweeping out of the room. Jon Snow nods at them both, mumbles something polite, and is gone, bobbing out the door in her wake.

“If she tries to—” Jaime starts, but Brienne shakes her head sharply, and he shuts up. This may be the day his children were born, but that’s not an excuse to act stupid. In fact, it’s very much the opposite.

It’s been hours since the sun has set and Jaime’s finally starting to notice that he’s absolutely fucking exhausted. Brienne is having a similar struggle with keeping her eyes open, but it seems that the babies have actually slept off their dinner and are now feeling much livelier, mewling and wiggling and blinking up with those big blue eyes. Jaime is just starting to panic at the thought of never sleeping again _(it’s not his fault, he never in his life had to contemplate raising children without an army of paid servants to handle the dirty work)_ , but to his eternal gratitude, Gilly arrives with Polly, the girl she mentioned whom he recognizes from the kitchens, and who is apparently no novice when it comes to wetnursing.

“My mother was nurse to all of Lady Manderly’s babes, and I nursed her daughter’s first and second,” says Polly with a warm grin. She’s got a sweet round face, walks pigeon-toed, and makes incredible venison stew, though he’s missed it in recent months. This must be why. “I can take them in with me for the night, I’m already looking after my own youngest and two other babes from women in the castle.”

“But don’t you need to sleep yourself?” Brienne asks, eyeing this girl like she’s not sure she trusts her, even in spite of Lady Manderly and her grandchildren.

“My days have been nights these last months,” Polly laughs. “I only left my bed a few hours ago.”

Brienne still looks obstinate, and Jaime feels like if there’s ever a moment he’s going to need to intervene, it’s this one. “Brienne,” he murmurs in her ear, “you need a good night’s rest.”

“Shouldn’t they stay with us?” she retorts, stubborn as always, and he fights not to reply with even a hint of condescension.

“They could, if you want them to, but from what I know they’ll be up and down every couple hours. There’s help to be had, so let’s have it.”

She bites her lip. He understands, really, the urge to never let these fragile little creatures out of his sight, never trust anyone with them, not even himself—but if he’s learned anything from almost a year stuck in the North with a castle full of Starks and Targaryens and Wildlings and magnificent women from Tarth, it’s that nothing truly worth doing can be done entirely on one’s own. Even the strongest hands can only turn the wheel of the world so far without assistance.

In the end, Brienne is too tired to insist that the babies stay with them throughout the night, though when she agrees to let Polly take them she fixes the other woman with the kind of brutal stare that Jaime has seen her use when she wants people to know she has a sword and knows how to wield it. _(Polly doesn’t seem to care, or even notice, really, which Jaime thinks is probably for the best.)_

But before Brienne lets Gilly and Polly bundle them off to Polly’s room two floors below, she insists on holding each one individually, first Catelyn, then Perrick, and then Olenna, clutching them one by one to her chest and staring down at their tiny squished faces like she’s trying to memorize every part of them, every white-blonde hair, every pink and red blotch, every newly stretched wrinkle on their delicate hands and brows. Each time she blinks and sighs and reluctantly hands them away, it’s to Jaime, who takes a moment of his own to kiss their soft heads and stroke the translucent skin on their arms and feel those heartbeats, fluttering and quick like a bird’s wings, just beneath his fingertips.

 _I will be the father you deserve,_ he promises his children, one by one. _I will believe in myself, for you. You will never walk alone, darlings, not while I draw breath._

And then they’re gone, taken away in the arms of Polly and Gilly, who gives them one last smile before she leaves and accepts Jaime’s impassioned “Lady Gilly, with all our hearts, we thank you for what you’ve done” with a nod and a soft giggle, young as she is, a mother and a girl both.

“Did it really happen?” Brienne asks through a yawn as Jaime blows out all lamps and candles but the one in the window, burning yellow through the black Northern night.

“As far as I know.” He shucks his boots, breeches, and tunic, limbs growing heavier by the moment. They’re not in their own room, in fact they’re in one of the rooms prepared for the Dragon Queen and her retinue _(and now that he thinks about it, given the jug of wine still sitting over on the table, it’s very possible they stole Tyrion’s room and his little brother was uncharacteristically polite enough not to mention it)_ , and hopefully tomorrow Brienne will have the energy to walk _very carefully_ down two flights and across the central eastern passage to their chambers, but in the meantime this room is a temporary home, the place they met their children for the first time, and Jaime feels a wave of safety and serenity wash over him as he slides onto the bed and under the furs to lie beside his warm, soft, utterly alive wife.

Brienne yawns again, and it ends in a wince as she tries to roll towards him. Jaime shushes her and cuddles up as close as he can, running his hand gently over the stretched loose skin on her abdomen, over the sore spots on her lower belly, over her tender breasts and the collarbone that smells like babies’ heads. He tucks her head under his chin and breathes in deeply, dried sweat and blood and witch-hazel and cotton and furs and potatoes and stew and _Brienne_.

“Jaime,” she murmurs against his chest. He kisses her temple, squeezing her as tight as he dares. “We’re…parents now.”

“I know,” he whispers back.

“We have children. Three of them.”

“We do.”

“…is this really what happens next?”

He frowns through the sleep creeping up on him, clouding his mind. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this, is this what we do with ourselves now,” and she sounds just as hazy as he is, the madness and mayhem and magic of the day all coming down on her and pushing her under. “Them, and us, as a…well…”

“A family,” he finishes for her. She breathes out long and slow against his breastbone.

“I imagined so many different trials and tests when I left Tarth, but never a family.” Maybe it’s the fatigue but Jaime imagines she sounds happy.

“And what do you imagine now?”

“Everything,” she sighs, and just when he thinks she’s dropped off, she hums and kisses his chest and adds, “only it’s all of us together when it happens.”

Jaime goes to sleep with Brienne in his arms and the words _us_ and _family_ and _next_ echoing in his ears. 

* * *

_“They say the best swords have names. Any ideas?”_

_“…Oathkeeper.”_

_And the rest is said without words._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyways, if you're diabetic and this chapter sent you into sugar shock, sorry bout that.
> 
> There will be a short epilogue after this, and I have 3-4 smaller fics planned (including a sequel to "once it ends (so it begins)" if you like that story). But with this chapter, we reach the climax of this lovely fluffy domestic voyage we've been taking together, and I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have kept coming back to this, left amazing comments and kudos, and generally made my first foray back into writing fic since 2015 a hugely rewarding and creatively healing experience. THANKS TO ALL YOU AMAZING PEOPLE, WOULDN'T BE HERE WITHOUT YA.
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments. I was/am nervous about it because birth chapters are never easy and always feel unavoidably tropey to me, but I tried to steer as clear as I could of the unrealistic and the easy and familiar without sacrificing my need for EARNED HAPPY ENDINGS THAT ARE DROWNING IN FLUFF.
> 
> Oh, and hey, THANK YOU AGAIN!!


	9. Three Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end!

**3,951 Days**

* * *

The morning of their children’s tenth name-day, Jaime almost punches her.

In this case, it’s entirely her fault. She’s the one who woke up and decided they had just enough time before the rest of the household stirred to privately celebrate a decade of successfully keeping their progeny alive. Granted, it’s been a while since either of them were roused out of bed by the blast of a battle horn or the blows of an attacker, but he’s still a soldier, still a knight, and she should know herself how hard old habits die.

“Ow! Jaime!”

“Brienne?” He sounds groggy and confused, which is fair, since he was just woken out of a sound sleep by the pinch of teeth around his right nipple. But also to be fair, who else did he think it was?

“Yes, and try not to aim for the face next time,” she grumbles, sitting up a little. She had been bent over him, one hand on his soft belly and her lips pressed to his chest, and fortunately for her his flailing stump had only bumped her cheekbone, but it still hurt and came dangerously close to poking her in the eye.

“ ‘M not aiming, ‘m sleeping,” he mutters, blinking blearily. “What’re you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing? Or has your memory already begun to slip, old man?”

That gets him up. Whatever else Jaime has become in the last two decades, less vain is not on the list. Calling him old or grey or anything of the sort is more than enough to rankle him, and being eight years younger than him, she happily indulges in such rankling at least once a day.

“Nothing slips,” he growls at her, and his good hand comes up to tangle in her hair _(still white-blonde, and if any grey has appeared yet it’s easily swallowed up in the natural lightness, she’s got time)_ and pull her head back down to his chest, where she promptly goes back to kissing and biting and playfully yanking at his chest hair with her front teeth, just to make him yelp.

It’s a lovely morning fuck, just like she wanted, just like they’ve always loved. But they’ve learned to have a little fun with it too. Jaime takes great pleasure in lying back and giving her orders in the beginning, playing the commander once again. Brienne indulges him for a short while, kisses him where and how he orders, moves her hands and long thin fingers across the battlefield map of his body that she could maneuver across with her eyes closed. He doesn’t order her to suck him off but he does tell her to draw her sword, which is a bit of a catch-all expression that she knows is meant to be followed at her discretion, and today she wants him like this, in her mouth, hard and thick and achingly familiar.

Still lying beside him but propped up by an elbow on his ribcage, ignoring his exaggerated groan at her weight, she closes her eyes and bends down, runs her tongue over the ridges and the slit at the end and the place where it goes from one kind of smooth to another. Jaime isn't playful now, he's gasping and biting his lip above her, and when she takes a deep breath and slides him all the way into her mouth, into her throat, the way that has never bothered her and apparently feels like the magnificent end of the world to him, she hears him swear above her and feels the tension in his fingers as he claws at her shoulder and she thinks, _mine._

_To taste, to touch, to tease. My bed, my Jaime, ten years and more, mine._

She works patiently, varying the pressure and the pace, pulling off sometimes and stroking, letting him rest at the back of her throat and swallowing around him until he literally sobs. It makes her burn to hear him like this, feel him like this, makes her thighs press together as she fights her own need and luxuriates in the experience of Jaime lost to pleasure. But she pointedly never looks up at his face up until the twitching of his hips and the change in his breathing tells her it’s time to stop, she knows his lovemaking like she knows the heft of her sword and the fit of her armor and if she actually wants him inside her she has to get a move on.

When she pulls off and rocks back on her knees to look at him, Jaime is red-faced and sweaty, his neatly-clipped hair standing up in places where it was flattened backwards by the pillow. He’s clean-shaven, the way the children like _(sometimes she misses the beard, the wiry roughness of it, between her legs and on her mouth and just there on his face making him look grumpy and serious)_ , and his mouth hangs open slightly as he stares down at her.

“You,” he gasps, and she nods as she strips off the well-worn shift she sleeps in.

“Me,” she confirms, and throws a leg over his hips, grabs his cock still wet and gleaming with her spit, and sinks down onto him without further preamble.

Jaime arches back, the tendons in his neck standing out and his mouth opening with a soft _uh_ , but Brienne misses most of it because her head falls forward automatically at the feeling, the stretch, the wonderful blunt intrusion. Gods, it’s been too long, it’s been, what—days? A week? How could she go that long without feeling him like this, inside her, strong thighs flexing beneath her ass, his right arm already going around her waist to pull him up chest-to-chest with her, heat everywhere and her heartbeat in her mouth?

_(Three tiny lunatics to chase after, the Stormlands to oversee, and bodies that seem to need more and more sleep, damn them. That’s how.)_

But she has it right now, has him, and it’s her turn to become the commander, gripping his waist with her thighs and grabbing at his hair with one hand and whispering fiercely in his ear how she wants it, how he should take her. He listens, good soldier, letting her rock and grind against him at first, just bracing himself so she can set her own rhythm and take _him_ , really, that’s what she loves, taking him with all of her strength because he can handle it and he wants it and he wants her.

Brienne pants and bites at his neck, loving the feeling of him pushing in as deep as he can go, clenching around him and swallowing the moan it produces, but she wants a different angle and she also wants more Jaime, so now she pulls back a bit and resettles herself _(oh, right there, yes)_ and breathes, “Harder,” and his eyes blaze as he wraps his right arm tighter around her and goes back on his left elbow for better leverage and plants his feet and then just starts _pounding_ up into her, hips thrusting relentlessly, as strong as he ever was. Brienne yelps and falls forward over him, hands hitting the mattress and straight arms keeping her up, but he’s far back enough and she’s tall enough that it’s put her chest directly in Jaime’s face and he takes full advantage, sucking and licking and biting at her breasts.

Brienne’s head spins, the way Jaime pumps up and up and up without stopping and now he’s hitting that fucking _place_ deep inside, dragging over it and punching at it and it makes her go insane, babbling and moaning and whimpering like a possessed person. She matches his thrusts the same way she matches the stride of a horse she’s riding, moving in tandem while the bedframe creaks and complains and skids against the rough stone floor. The way he’s going at her breasts they’ll be _covered_ with blotches and bruises and she doesn’t care because it feels so good, it feels _so good,_ and then suddenly his right arm slides off her waist and he’s shoving his stump in between them, wedging it in right where their bodies meet so that with the rocking motion her clit grinds directly against the hard knotted scars along his wrist, and she _loves_ that, Gods she loves it, _it’s only me, I’m the only one who’ll ever do this with that part of him, mine, mine—_

“Love you, Jaime, love you so—please—” She gasps, face pressed into his ear and hair, and he shivers under her and thrusts so hard it feels like she might fly off, or break in half, or die, she’s so close, and she gulps and moans and sits up enough to lift one hand and digs her nails into his shoulder, and that last change in angle along with his stump and the power of his thrust, all of that does it. Brienne feels it building for one or two breathless seconds, goes rigid to brace for impact, and her eyes meet Jaime’s—

She comes with a wail, bucking her hips wildly against his stump and seizing his muscled upper left arm, nails digging in even harder this time as the feeling explodes inside her. Jaime fucks her through it _(he always used to stop and let her breathe while it was happening—a demand of Cersei’s, maybe, that he’d made into habit early on—but six years ago they discovered the alternative and have never gone back)_ , eyes glued to her face, mouth open and pouring out nonsense words, “Yeah yeah that’s it I love you come on Brienne yes fuck take me _take me_ I’m yours oh fuck yes,” and Brienne’s body is on fire and it’s pulling apart and it all feels like heaven.

He doesn’t need to do much after she’s done, just tips her gently backwards onto the bed and lets her gasp for air while he readjusts himself and comes back inside and thrusts maybe half a dozen times before he’s the one to seize up and then cry out, staying buried inside her as bliss rolls savagely through him. She gazes up at him, at the way his face screws up right when he comes, at the furrowing in his brow like he’s surprised at it all, how good it is, and then the way his lips form the soundless shape of her name as he shudders through it and then collapses on top of her, a grown man’s full weight holding her down.

Gods she loves it, every time, it’s been more than ten years and it’s changed and it’s different and it’s grown older like both of them but she fucking loves it, every time with him.

They lie there like that for a few minutes, panting and twitching and letting sweat and other sticky things glue them together. Jaime gets far more tired after sex now _(in his old age, she thinks affectionately)_ , which is why she rarely tries to fuck in the mornings anymore, lest he just drift right off again and be useless until lunchtime. She feels a little guilty now, since today of all days he won’t have the opportunity to do such a thing, but it’s _because_ it’s today of all days that she woke up wanting him so badly, wanting to feel wrapped up and cared for in his arms the way she always has been, the way she was ten years ago today when he brought her through the worst battle of her life.

“Don’t fall asleep,” she mutters in his ear, which is resting right beside her lips as he pants into her neck.

“ ‘M not asleep.”

“They’ll be battering down the door soon—”

“ ‘S barred, is’nit?” he mumbles, clearly half-conscious, and she snorts.

“Like that’s ever stopped them.”

“Two minutes.” He nuzzles further into her neck, docile and sweet as an old housecat, and her heart aches with how much she never wants to let him go, her Jaime, her good stupid stubborn honorable man, who spent so many years not trying and going away inside and now tries without rest, without pause, for her, for them.

But if she never lets him go, then their children might burst in and find their parents in a post-coital embrace that will surely become the stuff of horrifying legend, so with a wave of reluctance she puts her hands gently on Jaime’s shoulders and shoves him off of her.

It’s not her fault he missed the bed and fell on the floor.

* * *

It takes more than a little over ten years for a country to grow up. But Westeros is trying, and they’re all trying with it.

The winter after the Long Night lasted three years, shorter than some in history but agreed to by all to be one of the coldest and most widespread. When the snows finally cease to fall and breezes no longer threaten to cause frostbite, the question is who and what will be left in the aftermath of two wars and so many frozen moons.

The answer, ultimately, does not include Daenerys. Though the winter was harsh, it may have needed to be, if only to cool the raging blaze of the Dragon Queen’s ambition. By the time spring begins to struggle up through the snow, the Armies of the East are tired. They are far from home, they are cold and hungry, and they serve a woman who no longer seems to know why she wants what she wants. It is a common sight, in that last long year, to see the world’s only full-blooded Targaryen standing on the battlements of whatever holdfast she occupies, staring to the south and the east, her white-blond hair whipping around her pale face and the eyes that never seem to stop longing for something that is gone.

Her dragons grow weak and scrawny, her men grow sick. Daenerys has absolute loyalty from her followers but she cannot command the seasons. Whatever the Gods may have intended in sending the winter, the result is one the Dragon Queen cannot overcome with fire or blood. When spring first came, news travels quietly and swiftly across the country that the Dragon Queenn and her armies would be marching, not south to King’s Landing, but to the eastern coast, where ships have continued to sail back and forth through choppy black waters between the frozen West and the sunlit east. The Eastern soldiers have diminished, many who were not lost to the Long Night victims of a climate that they were not born to endure. Without fanfare or ceremony, the last living Targaryen, her armies, and her dragons, all board the wooden horses and sail back to the east, to the land they need and which needs them.

She is not missed in Westeros. Long ago, her brother had predicted that the Targaryen force would arrive to the cheers of the masses, celebrated as the true rulers of their country and installed by the devotion of their people back onto the throne that was their birthright. But in truth, the smallfolk and citizens of Westeros have had enough of fire and blood, no matter who it was promised would bleed.

Spring may see the departure of the Dragon Queen from Westeros, but it also sees the departure of the Northern forces from the North. The minute Samwell Tarly can point to any signs of a change in the weather, Jon Snow and Lady Sansa spring into action. The North has suffered through the winter, but that is what the North does, has always done. Northerners know how to replenish their strength through the winter years, never scraping the bottom of the barrel or finding themselves at the end of their rope. As the snow melts and the roads slowly emerge into view, a force of Northmen hardened by struggle and ready to move after years of hunkering down emerge.

There is fear, in those first spring months, of what they will find. It has been two years since word came from spies in the capital, and for all they know, Cersei has amassed an even greater army than she had before, the Golden Company and the Iron Fleet and maybe her own horde of the dead. They cannot leave her there, cannot give her time to prepare for them, but they don’t want to thaw only to end up roasting over a fire. Tyrion and Varys were left behind by the Dragon Queen _(left or escaped from, the answer is never truly clear)_ and they search for rumors, stories, any information at all about the condition of the South

It isn’t good.

Famine. Disease. Whole empty villages full of corpses frozen in their beds. It is a horror, the South, worst in the Crownlands but still stretching across it all, the Reach and the Westerlands and the Stormlands. Even the Riverlands have suffered, though not as badly. They at least had ways to feed themselves, ice-fishing and mill-power where the rivers hadn’t gone into deep freeze. But the majority of the South has been left to fend for itself with no assistance from the crown, and it has led to disaster.

Death is everywhere. As the thaw comes, the bodies start to rot, and the Northern army burns and buries countless dead in a haze of sickness and gagging at the smell. The fields have been abandoned, frozen over and covered in snow, and almost all livestock and other animals have died. Wolves and bears have done well, at least. The march to King’s Landing is one long trail of graves and refugees, so many and yet not enough, gaunt skeletons dressed in clothes made out of cloth and mud baked together over a fire. They are starving, they are half-awake in their cold and hunger, and many of them die even after the army provides them with food and shelter. It’s as if the will to live has been frozen solid, and with the spring even that melts away.

King’s Landing is its own hell. Jon Snow prepares his men for a fight, but when they arrive at the outskirts of the great city, there is no answering army there to greet them, not even the City Watch. They open the gates themselves and walk through, into a maze of filthy streets and crumbling buildings. Spring has long since melted away the worst of the frost and snow, but that has left everything wet and stinking, and the damp has gotten into the walls and the cobblestones and loosened and weighed it all down until the entire city seems to be sagging under its own weariness. There are huge groups of people huddled together in larger areas, very few occupying single houses, and they have a feral look about them. Not as starved as those outside the city, but unclean and hungry and nervous, expecting violence at every turn, speaking in hushed, garbled words.

This is not the first winter the South has seen. Countless times, the snows and the frost and the ice have all descended, and the country has come out the other side without falling apart. But in this winter, there was been nothing to hold them together, because the Queen has gone away.

That’s what they say, when the Northern soldiers ask them, the citizens of King’s Landing mumbling and twitching and snatching at the food they’re offered. The Queen has gone away, and there is no one, no one, only cold. Soldiers stood at their posts waiting for orders that never came, until one by one they deserted back to their families, and no retribution was offered. The Red Keep has been shut up for years, nothing and nobody going in or out. Many of the servants who worked inside have not been seen since the winter began. The Golden Company has gone, the Iron Fleet has gone, it is a city of living people ruled by a ghost.

They break into the Red Keep. It is cleaner here, clearly kept and managed for some time. But it reeks of death, so strongly that many of the soldiers vomit or faint and the gates have to be closed again, briefly, while they soak kerchiefs in oil and herbs and anything that will block out the smell long enough to venture inside.

Jon Snow leads a battalion inside. They begin to find the bodies almost immediately. Serving lasses, royal guards, cooks, gardeners, footmen, pages, armorers—everyone and anyone who worked in the castle, who served the Queen, lies dead. Thanks to the cold, many of the bodies are only now beginning to rot, so it is clear that none of them died of starvation. Their bodies are not weak and feeble, their clothes are not threadbare and chewed upon like those mad with hunger will do. All have died the same way, from a deep cut made with a sword, starting from right under their chins and going all the way down to the meeting of their legs. Intestines and innards spill out everywhere, and the flies are so thick in some rooms that they block out the sun in the windows.

She is in the throne room, as she always wanted, where she always dreamed she would be. Qyburn’s body is a few feet away, opened neck to balls just like the rest of them, his hands reaching out as though pleading for help. But her body is not split open like a ripe fruit, no; ever defiant, Cersei is curled up on the Iron Throne, where the cold must have made the metal burn to the touch, her arms wrapped around her legs and a dagger clenched between her teeth. She is well-preserved, her skin greyish-green and pulling back from her teeth but not yet sagging and swelling with rot. She is wearing a set of man’s clothes, red and gold, covered in Lannister lions, and her eyes are open, horrifying desiccated husks where the jelly has dried up, the green now dead and black.

One person is alive in the Red Keep. They find him mindlessly patrolling the halls, his massive sword dragging across the floor as it dangles from his hand, covered head to toe in a sticky resin of dried blood. When Jon Snow shouts for him to halt and put down his weapon, Ser Gregor Clegane stops, turns, and silently charges.

He kills two men before they can drive him back, and in the end, it is the Hound, who refused to be left behind, who swore and fought and made Lady Sansa cry so that he might return to King’s Landing with the rest of the army, that chases after the abomination that is his brother. They fight like rabid dogs, the flies on the dead buzzing around them in a dark angry whirlwind, and it takes six men and Jon Snow stabbing him repeatedly with long swords and daggers to slow the Mountain down enough for the Hound to rear back with a roar and chop off the head of a thing that had once been alive, if not human.

And then, after all of it is over, months of work. Months of cleaning and repair and relocation, months of sending envoys to the Vale and the Iron Islands to see who is still alive _(Euron Greyjoy was killed in a duel with a Dornishman, surprising no one, and leaving Yara to step in and take control of what was left of the Ironborn)_ and what they can donate to the agonizing process of rebuilding half the country. Months turn into years, and though it is slow and painful and there is still death for those who did not have the strength to wait it out, the regrowth of Westeros continues.

Brienne is not there for any of that.

Well, she is, in that she hears about it from Lady Sansa, and from letters that Pod sends _(Cam Cerwyn had been called to join the march and Pod had joined him, pale but determined, making Brienne very proud)._ But when the spring comes and Jon Snow prepares to go out and reclaim what is left of the nation, Brienne doesn’t go with him. Neither does Jaime. They don’t yet know what the new world is like and what their old places in it have become, and they’re not going to march without some idea of what they’re marching into. Jaime in particular may be in danger, and if something should happen or someone _(whoever could it be)_ comes for him, he would be putting their family directly in the line of fire. Also, Lady Sansa needs Brienne’s support more than ever now, to run the North when all those left behind by the army have to begin preparing for summer, so she can’t run off to save peasants and fight enemies _now_ , can she?

All that is the gist of Jaime’s argument, delivered in a variety of forms and fashions, and while it’s deeply annoying it’s not actually wrong or untrue in any way. It goes against every impulse in Brienne not to put herself at the front of the charge, especially when the innocent and the weak, the abandoned smallfolk, need her. She’s a knight, she’s always fought for those who had no one else to fight them. She wants to be out there, helping, protecting, part of the effort to solve the problem. Her honor calls her to it, her sense of duty compels her.

And yet there are other duties that are just as difficult to ignore.

Before she got pregnant, Brienne hadn’t really considered much of the reality of being a mother. She’d mostly focused on the unpleasantness of pregnancy and her fear of the birthing bed, but even when she tried to imagine fulfilling her duty to her father and giving Tarth an heir, she hadn’t really, well, _imagined_ it. In her mind, there was a baby, it was hers, and then it was just kind of…there. Doing its own thing.

Well, now she has three babies, and they’re all hers and Jaime’s, and as she quickly discovers, they do not do their own thing.

* * *

Brienne is in the middle of washing her face when she hears the shouting start.

It’s the girls, because of course it is. Whatever the conflict is, it sounds fairly serious for this time in the morning, and from the steadily rising volume it’s heading down the hall right towards them.

“Your daughters are imminent,” she tells Jaime as she rinses soap off her hands in the basin. Jaime makes a _humph_ noise and she turns to see him sitting in bed, dressed in a linen shirt and breeches but no boots, his arms crossed obstinately as he glares up at her.

“Gods, are you still sulking?” she asks, patting her face dry with the towel.

“You bruised my hip,” he spits out. Brienne rolls her eyes and goes to unbar the bedroom door, lest their daughters get so caught up in the argument echoing through the hallway outside that they don’t pay attention and just barrel straight into, or through, solid wood.

“You fell on the floor, Jaime. Are you a grown man and knight, or a delicate Southern flower?”

“I’m _bruised_ ,” he insists, scowl deepening, and it’s at that moment that the door bursts open and Cat literally kicks her sister through with a foot to the backside.

“Behold, a thief!” their firstborn declares, dramatically tossing her head. She’s kept her hair long, possibly for just such occasions, and with Brienne’s bright buttery coloring it makes a grand impression when she really whips it around.

Lenna scrambles up off the floor _(Cat kicks hard)_ and whirls on her sister. “You’re a liar, you lost it last week, I was _there_ , you just don’t want to get in trouble!”

“How _dare_ you!” roars Cat, raising her fist, and then Brienne grabs her calmly by the nape of her neck, steers her over to the corner of the room, and sticks her head in the wash basin.

“Happy name-day, darling,” Jaime says placidly to the daughter who is currently not shrieking underwater. She turns to him and grins, looking so much like Brienne with her cropped blonde hair and wide blue eyes, although she does smile more than Brienne ever did.

“Happy my name-day to you too,” she says as she hops onto the bed beside him, snuggling up against his right side like she always does. Jaime wraps his arm around her, his stump tucked in at her waist, and she blinks innocently up at him, very much aware which parent will be easiest to sway to her cause. “Cat started it.”

“Don’t even try, young lady,” Brienne says sternly, even as she pulls her other daughter’s head out of the wash basin in a spray of wet blonde hair and indignant gasping.

“Ugh! It’s not fair, it—”

“Do you need to go again?” Brienne asks, her voice measured and calm. Cat blinks up at her, water dripping down her face, and a familiar look passes between mother and daughter. Her little shoulders ease slightly as she takes a deep breath.

“No, Mama,” Cat says in a tone that is only slightly sulky. Brienne nods and hands her the towel to dry herself.

“Happy name-day, you little hellion.” Jaime reaches out with his left hand, beckoning her in. “Come here, make peace with your sister in the bed of forgiveness.”

“Don’t let Cat come in the bed, she’s all wet!” whines Lenna, which of course means that Cat drops the towel and jumps on the bed and proceeds to try and rub her wet hair all over her sister’s face. Brienne rolls her eyes and lets Jaime wrestle them apart as she continues getting dressed, slipping her tunic on and lacing up her boots.

“At ease, soldiers!” Jaime finally barks when he has one girl wrapped in each arm, their hands pinned in his fist or against his chest. “What started this melee, anyway?”

“Lenna stole my scabbard!”

“I did not! You lost it out on the Cold Beach and you weren’t supposed to take it out there anyway and now—”

“I didn’t lose it, _you_ lost yours and now you’ve stolen mine—”

“Sort it out, won’t you?” Brienne says to Jaime, her voice raised just enough to be heard over the squabbling. “I’m going to go rouse the little maester.” He gives her a baleful look as she leaves the room, trying to hide her grin.

It’s not early, but it’s not too late either. On Tarth, the morning comes in with either stormclouds or bright sunlight, rarely anything in between. Today it’s sunlight, which Brienne could not be more grateful for. Whether it’s anticipation of name-day celebrations or just good old-fashioned sibling conflict, Brienne knows the girls will need to get out and burn off some energy today.

Evenfall Hall is peaceful in the morning. Wind comes off the sea and spreads the salt air, spreads a sense of peace. In King’s Landing and Winterfell, the bustling and barking had started with the sunrise. Islanders measure time in tides, Brienne knows, there is less urgency. As she makes her way down the south passage, she glances out the window at the Southern Watchman, standing tall and white in the distance. He’s an old man now, his plaster walls cracked and bonfire grate burned black a thousand times over, but he’s still there, stubborn and grounded, winking at her children every night the way he used to wink at her.

When she knocks gently on Perrick’s door, she gets no answer but goes in anyway, used to her son being too caught up in his writings or readings to hear the outside world calling him. Perrick’s room is small, but then again, so is Perrick, at least compared to his sisters, who at the age of ten are the size of full-grown women and, the maesters predict, will grow at least to their father’s height, if not their mother’s. By all other rubrics, Perrick is the size of any boy his age, maybe a little taller, graceful and lanky in the way Jaime was as a boy. But beside the rest of his family, even the sisters he shared a woman with, he always appears a little further down.

He’s awake, as she thought he might be, though he does sleep late sometimes when he stays up reading too late. He’s hunched over his desk by the window, quill scratching madly, mouthing silently along with his own words. Brienne approaches carefully, so as not to startle him, and nudges his chair a little with her knee.

“Is this a new one, or are you making additions to _Kissed By Fire?”_

“It’s new,” he mumbles, not even looking up at her. His blonde fringe is flopping forward over his face again, she needs to cut it.

“Ah. What’s it about?” she asks as she smooths his hair back. The quill slows slightly, stutters, and finally slows. Perrick sits back in his chair, blinking as though coming out of a dream. Brienne continues running her fingers through his hair while she brings her other hand to his arm and he grabs on, gripping her thumb like he used to when he was a baby.

“It’s about…pirates. From Lys. And they’re looking for a ship that nobody has ever seen before, with sails of gold, that the stories say carries more riches than have ever been seen in any land. Except,” and now he turns to her, brow furrowed, worried by his own plot, “the ship is captained and crewed by mermaids, and it sails _underwater_ , you see, and only comes above once every year, by the will of the Sea King, and—”

He pauses here, chewing his lip. Gods, her serious little maester, he still looks exactly like Jaime.

_(Jaime claims he looks exactly like her. They may have an ongoing disagreement about this.)_

“That’s as far as I got,” he says slowly. “But there’s more, there’s a lot more.”

“Good. I’m excited to read it.” Brienne bends down to kiss Perrick’s head, and he sighs and pushes his face into the crook of her arm. In this way she will admit he is like her. They both enjoy moments of silence and stillness, a soft conversation, speaking only if the thought strikes. Her girls are not as much that way, far more the eager young warrior that she herself had been, though without the crippling shyness developed by years of taunting and rejection. Olenna is the little strategist, obsessed with stories of war and exploration, a big thinker who concocts elaborate games and fantasy worlds to play in and wants to learn to use every weapon there is. Cat, meanwhile, is all fight and no fear, willing lead a charge of a thousand men or just herself as long as she has a sword in her hand, and there is no man, woman, or child on the island who hasn’t heard her screaming battle cries.

Brienne loves nothing more than the moments they spend together with swords in their hands. But there is something special when she and Perrick will sit sometimes, in the solar or in a field or even at the table in the main hall, and simply think beside each other as they watch the sunset and the sheep-farmers driving their flocks.

“It’s your name-day,” she murmurs, and he squirms a little.

“Are Cat and Lenna awake?”

“Yes.”

“Are they going to jump on me?”

“Maybe,” she tells him, amused. “Do you want me to stop them if they try?”

“No,” he sighs, “it’s all right, they like it and I don’t mind so much.”

“You could jump on them back,” she suggests, and his big green eyes widen. “That might make them stop.”

“Well…” He considers briefly, frowning. “I suppose I could…but I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

Brienne hides a smile in his hair.

* * *

They all meet in the main hall for breakfast, Brienne with Perrick riding on her back _(“Just once, Mama, please?” “You’re getting too big for it now, I told you.” “But I’m not as big as you yet!” “…fair enough, climb on.”)_. They find Jaime and the two girls already there, accompanied by the huge grinning mass of white hair and broad shoulders that is her father.

“Perrick!” booms Selwyn, and Brienne feels her son flinch slightly. The boy is devoted to his grandfather, just like his sisters, but he’s a little quieter than Selwyn ever tends to be. “My little man! Come give me a kiss!”

Brienne lets Perrick down and he dashes over to the table, making a brief detour to receive a kiss and a “Happy name-day, my love” from Jaime before burying himself in Selwyn’s arms. She makes eye contact with Jaime as she sits across from him and glances at Cat and Lenna, who are bent over their breakfast plates whispering furiously to each other.

“A truce?”

“Reached without bloodshed.”

“And the scabbard…?”

“Well, it turns out _both_ of them lost their scabbards at the Cold Beach,” Jaime sighs. Brienne grimaces.

“We’ll have to discipline them for that.”

“For losing a couple of worn-out training scabbards?”

“For not being careful with their belongings,” she says as she reaches for the bacon. “It doesn’t matter what they lost, it’s about responsibility.”

Jaime rolls his eyes, but she knows it’s only force of habit, and he’ll stand behind her when she finds a suitable punishment for the girls. Growing up in luxury, it is still hard for Jaime to hold his children accountable for losing or breaking or wasting, any of the accidental vices that many less fortunate folk do not have the privilege of entertaining. Brienne had a far more frugal childhood, highborn though she was, and she has been steadfast in making sure her children never fail to appreciate what they have and where it comes from. It’s not fun sometimes, to be the disciplinarian, especially since Jaime will often go the other way and try to spoil the children rotten _(though if Tywin Lannister had been her father she can only imagine the things she’d do to compensate)._ But though they may clash sometimes when it comes to raising the children, they trust each other, and everything from there is, if not easy, then doable.

“Perhaps we can have them work to pay off the cost of new ones,” she suggests around a mouthful of bacon. Jaime smirks and steals bacon from her plate.

“Muck out the stables? Scrub the floors? Answer my brother’s letters?”

Brienne snorts at the last one. The political situation in Westeros is far from stable, though it is in the midst of settling. As the battered and traumatized smallfolk begin to try and rebuild their lives and their homes, mourning their dead and weeping at how few seem to be left in every town, the need for leaders who care about the next generation and not their own legacy becomes clear. Rather than foisting the cursed Iron Throne upon any other individual, a sort of cautious regional alliance has developed between the disparate parts of the country. Each kingdom has a warden or governor, much as they always did, but now matters of unified national importance are to be decided through committee, in a fragile voting structure that Tyrion is working very, very, _very_ hard to sort out. Because at the center of this new government is Tyrion, as he always wanted to be, as it always should have been. His was the hand that wrote the Great Charter, a monstrously long and complex document that nevertheless seems to be keeping the peace through its careful declaration of certain rights and responsibilities, checks and balances on the scale of power, and which outlines a system that makes Brienne’s head hurt when she tries to understand it but so far appears to be doing an admirable job of helping things get decided without murder or riot.

The thing is, though, that Tyrion will write very very long letters to Jaime complaining about how hard all of this is because everyone is so intransigent and unhelpful, and Jaime will have to write back, because if he doesn’t Tyrion gets offended and starts writing to the Queen in the North, who has his trust but is no more happy to receive his vitriol than Jaime is, and then Sansa will write to Brienne, who will poke Jaime into replying, and then it all starts again. Come to think of it, a scribe employed specifically to answer Tyrion’s letters might not be a terrible idea.

“He’s sent presents for them, by the way,” Jaime tells her, wincing when she slaps his hand away from the bacon. “A saddle for Cat, an atlas for Lenna, and an erotic woodcut for Perrick.”

Brienne chokes on her bacon, and Jaime nods understandingly. “Yes, I thought so too. My little brother’s sense of humor is in no way diminished by his embrace of statesmanhood.”

“I’m going to kill that little man,” Brienne growls. “Or at least smash him over the head with his own bloody woodcuts.”

“Well you’ll have to find another one, because I sent that particular gift back to him. It was accompanied by a wonderful set of high-quality quills and ink, so I think he knew how it would go over. Anyways, Sansa still wins. She sent them each a barrel of maple candy.”

Brienne laughs out loud. Sometimes she misses Sansa so much, it’s like an anvil sitting on her chest, pressing her down with the weight of absence. But as much as she misses her lady, she does not miss the North, with its cold and its darkness, even in the summer. She and Jaime are Southerners both, and neither had relished the idea of raising their children in Winterfell. When the raven from her father had arrived, begging Brienne to at least visit Tarth one last time before he died _(he’s healthy as a horse and will probably outlive her, but he knows how to make his daughter guilty)_ , Sansa had seen the look in her eyes and released her from her vow on the spot. It had been so awful, like tearing in half, the desire to stay by her lady and continue helping her rebuild her home, and the urge to take her husband and children and go back to _her_ home, to the island that had survived a long winter thanks to its own industrious people and patient ruler, the beaches and blue waters she missed so much.

_“You will always be welcome here,” Sansa had said, brushing tears from Brienne’s cheeks even as her own continued to fall. “You are beloved of the Queen in the North and her people, and wherever you go, you carry our blessing.”_

_When Brienne had told Arya they were leaving, the little Stark had sniffed and blinked the wetness in her eyes and said, “Try not to let Lannister drown, he’ll be a shit swimmer with one hand. And if you don’t teach your girls to fight, then I will.”_

_It made her cry even harder than what Lady Sansa had said._

“So!” Her father’s voice rings through the hall. Brienne can’t help smiling to herself when Jaime flinches just as his son did. They’ve been living here for five years and he’s still not used to his good-father. Well, he might be used to him, but he’s _definitely_ still scared of him. “What is there to go on the name-day of the three brightest stars in Westeros?”

“Beach!” shouts Cat, at the same moment Lenna says “Ride!” A second later, Perrick peeps up with “Picnic?”

“How about all three!” Selwyn says, beaming. His grandchildren cheer and rush to him, and he gets to his feet and a moment later Cat and Lenna are both clambering up his arms like monkeys on vine while Perrick is hanging off his shoulders, little feet kicking.

Brienne glances at Jaime. They both have work to do, as ever: her as the Warden of the Stormlands _(Gendry Baratheon disappeared shortly after Arya Stark did, the latest rumors said they were spotted in Volantis)_ and Jaime as the manager of all things Tarth, a role he’s happily undertaken in private while her father continues to stand as the Evenstar in name and enjoy his retirement with his grandchildren. These positions are important to both of them, especially Jaime, who barely stepped onto the island before he started doing everything he could to overcome the Kingslayer stigma and make Selwyn and the smallfolk trust him. Brienne never fancied herself in charge of anything beyond Tarth, much less the Stormlands, but she finds it’s not quite so different from commanding a bunch of unruly soldiers _(and she has Jaime around to point out when someone is being a political arsehole and needs to be put in their place)._ Name-days are exciting, but life doesn’t stop and work doesn’t disappear just because—

Jaime’s not looking back at her. He’s looking at his children as they try to climb their grandfather, and he’s smiling.

And he’s going grey around the ears. And he grouses about his eyes growing weaker. And when they spar, he’s slower than he used to be, and his left shoulder troubles him even if he doesn’t like to admit it. And he oversleeps sometimes, and his brother can be a pain in the ass, and he sulks about being thrown out of bed after spectacular sex, which they can still have, because he may be getting older but he’s still Jaime Lannister and he ages like fine wine, damn him.

Brienne watches him, and she watches her children and her father, and she hears the rush of the blue waves outside.

Brienne of Tarth would not rather be anywhere else in the world than where she is right now.

In a moment, the children will leap off of Selwyn and run to their parents, begging Papa to come out with them and subtly implying that if Mama doesn’t come too it’s because she hates them and wants them to cry forever. Maybe they can all go riding to the base of Griffin’s Rook, bring some food and drink, walk along the beach or hike the bottom of the mountain. She and Jaime can’t be gone all day, but they can spare the morning and early afternoon.

There’s time now. Not much, but enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we draw to a close. The Good Ship Oathfluff has come into port.
> 
> (But fear not, there are a thousand more such ships written by wonderful and talented authors in this site, they will sail onwards for eternity.)
> 
> I tried to throw it all in here, the smut, the fluff, a brief account of one version of how the future played out. Honestly, I just wanted to wrap this up and give my stupid idiot blond knight babies a happy ending. Canon did not have a happy ending, it didn't have a sad ending, it didn't have an ENDING. The characters we love were really brutally yanked out of place and done dirty by the show's creators, and thank God for fanfic, where I have read so many unbelievably moving and intelligent alternatives to that clusterfuck of an end. Some are happy, some are angsty, but all are written with love, and that's what matters.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking around and reading and reviewing. You are AMAZING. Writing J/B fic came at a very weird time in my life and saved me in a lot of ways. You're all part of that, so thank you thank you THANK YOU again. 
> 
> There will be more fics a-coming, some in the universe and some not. I'll probably be taking a hiatus once we get to the end of September. But I will always adore and love your comments, and keep reading your fic, and come here to watch Jaime and Brienne play out their story through all of you.
> 
> (P.S. I couldn't fit everyone's ending into this, so in my head, it's like this: the Hound and Sansa had a lovely affair and then he died a peaceful death because Jesus his body must be fucked up and she grieved but eventually married a nice guy for political reasons and is still in charge of everything forever, Davos started an orphanage and teaches kids how to sail, Pod is the "close associate" of Cam Cerwyn and lives up North with him but comes to Tarth every other summer, Dany went back to Essos and fought the slaveowners which she was great at, Tormund went back beyond the wall and made beautiful love to a bobcat, yes I'm serious, Jon Snow works with Tyrion as head of the civil authority/police/whatever, Arya and Gendry are in the casinos, and Gilly and Sam had 10 more kids and all of them knew how to read, Ghost ate a lot of squirrels, the end.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Requests? Recipes? Send 'em my way.


End file.
